Teachers' questioning techniques in mathematics at grade 11 leval: The case of four selected Secondary Schools in Petauke District

Abstract

The study was conducted in Petauke district, which lies in the Eastern Province of Zambia. The study investigated teachers’ questioning practices in mathematics at Grade 11 level in four selected secondary schools and used the findings to inform mathematics teachers. Although questioning is a central aspect of any classroom interaction, it is still an under-researched area in the Zambian classroom context. The research employed a combination of both qualitative and quantitative methods to obtain rich information for in-depth analysis of the central issues under study. The study sample comprised 24 teachers of mathematics, 4 heads of mathematics department and 120 Grade 11 pupils (boys and girls), 80 were assigned to answer the questionnaires and 40 were involved in the focus group discussions from the four selected secondary schools in Petauke district. Four research instruments (observations, interview schedules, focus group discussions and questionnaires) were used to collect the necessary data in order to address the objectives of the study. Qualitative data collected were analysed using the constant comparative method, the software, Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16 was used to perform a variety of statistical analysis to analyse quantitative data.The key findings were that the majority of the questions which teachers of mathematics asked during mathematics lessons were in the low-cognitive level category. The predominance of lower levels questions asked by teachers of mathematics indicated also that questioning had been used in a narrow rather than a broader way. The majority of the pupils indicated that teachers’ classroom questions had no effect on their learning of mathematics. The study also suggested that there was no significant difference in the way boys and girls perceived their teachers’ classroom questions.The study recommended that questions must be emphasised in the mathematics classroom and that questioning strategies should be intensively given during teacher preparation.