Prequestions¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

Prequestions are questions posed to learners before they receive instruction on the target content — typically as a quiz, clicker question, or opening prompt. Learners usually answer incorrectly or guess, and the act of attempting an answer prepares them to encode the correct information more deeply when it is subsequently presented. This is the classroom application of the pretesting effect: errors made during pretesting do not impair learning; they enhance it Kornell et al. found that unsuccessful retrieval attempts before study improved later retention. [+S].

Design Implications¶

Prequestions work through two complementary mechanisms: they activate relevant prior knowledge and create an active retrieval attempt that makes the learner's knowledge gap visible, and they direct attention toward the prequestioned content during subsequent instruction Prequestions enhance learning of the prequestioned material. [+S]. Because attention is a limited resource, prequestions act as an advance organizer for the learner's own processing — they tell learners what to listen for Prequestions selectively enhance learning of prequestioned content over non-prequestioned content. [~S].

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Questions that target the core concepts of the upcoming instruction, not trivia
• A short delay between the prequestion and instruction (immediate feedback or instruction following within minutes works best)
• A low-stakes framing: learners must feel safe guessing, since wrong answers are the mechanism, not a failure (Assessment for Learning)
• Subsequent instruction that actually addresses the prequestioned content

Constraints¶

• Prequestions narrow attention: learners learn prequestioned content better but non-prequestioned content worse than learners who saw no prequestions Prequestions selectively enhance learning of prequestioned content over non-prequestioned content. [~S] — prequestioning a narrow slice of material can cost learning elsewhere
• Feedback must come quickly; prequestions followed by long delays or no resolution lose most of their benefit Immediate feedback after prequestions produces larger benefits than delayed feedback. [+M]
• Guessing without any prior knowledge to activate yields smaller gains than prequestions that connect to related knowledge Prequestions benefit learners most when they possess related prior knowledge. [~M]
• In video and multimedia contexts, prequestions can increase cognitive load if they are complex or numerous Prequestions can impose extraneous load in multimedia learning contexts. [~W]

Implementation Variability¶

• Clicker/poll questions at the start of a lecture, with peer discussion before instruction (Class Discussion)
• Pre-lecture quizzes in flipped designs, where prequestions prepare learners for the recorded or in-class instruction (Flipped Classroom)
• Embedded prequestions before video segments in online courses
• Anticipation guides in literacy instruction: agree/disagree statements learners revisit after reading

Target Learners¶

• Learners with moderate prior knowledge, who can generate meaningful (if wrong) hypotheses Prequestions benefit learners most when they possess related prior knowledge. [~M]
• Complete novices benefit less from guessing alone; pair prequestions with Activation activities that surface relevant experience first
• Learners prone to passive lecture-watching; prequestions counteract the illusion that listening is learning

Target Learning Goals¶

• Factual and conceptual knowledge that can be posed as a direct question
• Attention direction: ensuring learners notice the most important content in a dense lecture or video
• Metacognitive calibration: revealing to learners what they do not yet know Prequestions improve learners' ability to judge what they do and do not know. [+W]

Instructions¶

1. Identify the 2–4 core concepts of the upcoming lesson and write one question per concept — answerable by guess, not by lookup.
2. Present the questions before any instruction, framed as low-stakes ("wrong answers today make tomorrow's learning stronger").
3. Collect answers individually (clicker, poll, quick write); optionally add brief peer discussion.
4. Proceed directly into instruction that explicitly resolves each prequestion, referencing learners' guesses (Advance Organizers can frame this structure).
5. Revisit the same questions after instruction as a closing check, converting them into Retrieval Practice.

Related Strategies¶

• Activating Prior Knowledge — prequestions serve double duty as activation when they connect to learners' existing experience
• Retrieval Practice — the post-instruction counterpart; prequestions are pretesting, retrieval practice is posttesting
• Advance Organizers — a non-question alternative for orienting learners before instruction

Examples¶

• Peer Instruction (Eric Mazur, Harvard) — ConcepTests pose a conceptual physics question before the lecture segment explains it; students vote, discuss with peers, then vote again before instruction resolves the question. https://www.per-central.org
• Anticipation guides — A common literacy practice in which students agree/disagree with statements about a text before reading, then revisit their answers afterward.
• In-video prequestions — Platforms such as Coursera embed a question before a lecture video segment; learners who attempt the question before watching show better retention of the segment content Prequestions before video segments improve learning from video. [+M]

Key Sources¶

• Kornell, N., Hays, M. J., & Bjork, R. A. (2009). Unsuccessful retrieval attempts enhance subsequent learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 35(4), 989–998. doi:10.1037/a0015729
• Richland, L. E., Kornell, N., & Kao, L. S. (2009). The pretesting effect: Do unsuccessful retrieval attempts enhance learning? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 15(3), 243–257. doi:10.1037/a0016496
• Carpenter, S. K., & Toftness, A. R. (2017). The effect of prequestions on learning from video presentations. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 6(1), 104–109. doi:10.1016/j.jarmac.2016.07.014
• Pan, S. C., & Rickard, T. C. (2018). Transfer of test-enhanced learning: Meta-analytic review and synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 144(7), 710–756. doi:10.1037/bul0000151