Creating Questions¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 1 claim (1 for) · 3 studies (2 causal, 1 quant-synthesis), q3 · 1 of 3 report an effect size

Description¶

Creating Questions is a strategy in which learners generate questions about content they are listening to. The instructor pauses at intervals during a speech, documentary, podcast, or read-aloud, and learners write one or two questions about what they just heard. This shifts learners from passively receiving information to actively monitoring their own comprehension — listening for points of confusion, gaps, or curiosity. Because learners are typically trained to answer questions rather than pose them, brief modeling of effective question formulation is essential.

Design Implications¶

Self-questioning is one of the most consistently supported comprehension strategies: teaching learners to generate questions about material improves comprehension and retention across age groups and domains Teaching students to generate questions improves comprehension. [+S]. The mechanism is twofold: question generation forces active processing of the material, and the resulting questions serve as metacognitive signals that reveal what was not understood. Pausing during listening also functions as a form of Activation, prompting learners to connect new input to what they already know Activation improves learning. [+M].

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Structured pause points during the listening activity, spaced closely enough to prevent overload but not so frequent that the flow of the material is destroyed (Chunking the input)
• Modeling of question formulation — the instructor should think aloud while writing their own questions first
• A follow-on use for the questions (peer discussion, instructor selection, or self-directed re-listening) so question generation does not feel like a dead-end task

Constraints¶

• Learners accustomed to answer-seeking may initially produce shallow or off-target questions; quality improves only with modeling and practice [~M]
• Pausing too frequently fragments the material and degrades comprehension of extended discourse [~M]
• Without a follow-on activity, generated questions are often discarded and the metacognitive benefit is lost [-M]
• Learners with very limited prior knowledge may not know enough to ask substantive questions; front-loading background knowledge helps [~M]

Implementation Variability¶

• Question stems: provide sentence starters ("Why did…?", "What would happen if…?", "How does this connect to…?") for learners who struggle with formulation
• Question types: target different cognitive levels — clarifying questions (confusion), predictive questions (what comes next), inferential or "why" questions (deeper processing)
• Social formats: individual writing, pair generation, or whole-group question walls; Class Discussion can follow to address the best questions
• Asynchronous adaptation: in video-based courses, embed pause prompts at fixed timestamps and collect questions in a shared document or discussion thread

Target Learners¶

• Effective across all levels, but especially valuable for intermediate learners who have enough background to notice gaps but not enough to resolve them independently [~M]
• Struggling comprehenders benefit from explicit question stems; unstructured question generation can overload them [~M]
• Less immediately productive for complete novices, who lack the knowledge base to detect what they do not understand

Target Learning Goals¶

• Comprehension monitoring: recognizing gaps and confusion in real time
• Active listening: engaging with extended spoken input rather than transcribing or drifting
• Metacognitive development: building the habit of self-assessment central to Self-Regulated Learning
• Question-asking as a disciplinary skill (inquiry, journalism, research interviews)

Instructions¶

1. Model first: before the listening activity, the instructor plays a short excerpt and thinks aloud while writing their own questions, showing how to notice confusion and formulate it.
2. Set the pause structure: tell learners the material will stop at intervals; each stop, they write one or two questions (Individual Response).
3. Listen and generate: play the material, pausing at planned points. Early pauses should come sooner; spacing can lengthen as learners warm up.
4. Share and select: learners compare questions in pairs, then a few are surfaced to the whole group (Class Discussion); the instructor answers or flags questions for re-listening.
5. Close the loop: revisit the best questions after the listening ends, using them to structure review or a follow-up Check-In.

Related Strategies¶

• Active Listening — the broader listening posture this strategy operationalizes
• Activating Prior Knowledge — front-loading background knowledge makes substantive question generation possible
• Reciprocal Teaching — question generation is one of its four core strategies, alongside predicting, clarifying, and summarizing

Examples¶

• Listening comprehension in language classes: the instructor plays a podcast segment, pausing every 2–3 minutes; learners write questions in the target language, which doubles as output practice.
• Documentary viewing in secondary science: students generate "why" and "what if" questions at pause points; the teacher selects several to open the next lesson, enacting Assessment for Learning by using learner questions to diagnose understanding.
• Question Formulation Technique (Right Question Institute): a structured protocol in which learners produce, improve, and prioritize their own questions about a prompt (https://rightquestion.org).

Key Sources¶

• Rosenshine, B., Meister, C., & Chapman, S. (1996). Teaching students to generate questions: A review of the intervention studies. Review of Educational Research, 66(2), 181–221. doi:10.3102/00346543066002181
• King, A. (1994). Guiding knowledge construction in the classroom: Effects of teaching children how to question and how to explain. American Educational Research Journal, 31(2), 338–368. doi:10.3102/00028312031002338
• Palincsar, A. S., & Brown, A. L. (1984). Reciprocal teaching of comprehension-fostering and comprehension-monitoring activities. Cognition and Instruction, 1(2), 117–175. doi:10.1207/s1532690xci0102_1
• Rothstein, D., & Santana, L. (2011). Make just one change: Teach students to ask their own questions. Harvard Education Press.