Self Questioning¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

Self questioning is a strategy in which learners actively generate questions about the material they are studying and attempt to answer them, rather than passively rereading or reviewing. It can be prompted by the instructor (embedded question prompts, question stems) or taught as a self-regulated habit (e.g., "What is the main point here? What do I still not understand?"). The questions function both as elaborative processing — forcing the learner to connect and restructure content — and as a comprehension monitor that exposes gaps.

Design Implications¶

Self questioning works because answering a question requires retrieval and elaboration rather than recognition, converting review into generative processing. Its effectiveness depends on question quality: deep, "why" and "how" questions produce more learning than verbatim "what" questions, and learners typically need training or question stems to generate deep questions on their own. Prompted questioning before, during, and after study serves different functions — activating prior knowledge, focusing attention, and consolidating/monitoring respectively.

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Explicit training in question generation, or scaffolds such as question stems, generic question prompts, or worked models of good questions (Think-Aloud modeling of expert self-questioning)
• Material complex enough to warrant elaboration; learners must be able to locate answers (text, feedback, instructor) to close the gaps their questions reveal
• Time — self questioning is slower than rereading, and designs must protect that time rather than reward coverage speed

Constraints¶

• Untrained learners generate mostly shallow, factual questions; without stems or modeling the strategy can degrade into restating headings [-M]
• If learners cannot verify their answers, questions can entrench misconceptions — self-generated "answers" to unanswerable questions are later remembered as correct [-M]
• Adds cognitive load for novices handling dense material; questioning prompts compete with comprehension when the material itself is near working-memory capacity [~M]
• Low prior-knowledge learners may ask questions that miss the structural point of the material entirely [~M]

Implementation Variability¶

• Pre-questions placed before a text or lecture segment prime relevant schema and focus attention (advance questioning)
• Embedded prompts interrupt text or video at key points with directed questions
• Question generation as assessment: learners write exam-style questions for peers, shifting them to the generator role
• Reciprocal questioning (e.g., Reciprocal Teaching) pairs question generation with Peer Explanation and dialogue

Target Learners¶

• Intermediate learners with enough prior knowledge to ask meaningful questions; pure novices need heavily scaffolded prompts [~M]
• Readers and problem-solvers in text-heavy domains (science, history, clinical reasoning) where comprehension monitoring matters
• Students with weak self-regulation, for whom external question prompts substitute for absent monitoring habits

Target Learning Goals¶

• Reading comprehension and conceptual understanding of expository text
• Metacognitive monitoring: learning to detect one's own comprehension gaps
• Transferable study skills — self questioning is a core component of self-regulated learning routines

Instructions¶

1. Model the behavior: the instructor thinks aloud while reading or solving, generating and answering questions visibly (Think-Aloud).
2. Provide question stems matched to the goal (e.g., "How does X relate to Y?", "What would happen if…?", "What is this an example of?").
3. Have learners generate 2–3 questions before studying and answer them after, or answer embedded prompts during study (Advance Organizers can carry pre-questions).
4. Require learners to check answers against the source or feedback, and to flag unresolved questions for discussion (Check-In).
5. Fade the stems as learners internalize the questioning routine, moving toward unprompted self-generated questions.

Related Strategies¶

• Self-Explanation — the complementary generative act: explaining to oneself rather than interrogating the material
• Retrieval Practice — answering questions (self-generated or otherwise) is retrieval; questioning adds the generation step
• Annotating — questions written in margins are a common annotation form serving the same monitoring function

Examples¶

• Reciprocal Teaching (Palincsar & Brown) — small groups take turns generating questions about a passage, alongside summarizing, clarifying, and predicting; a validated routine for struggling readers.
• Peer question generation — students write exam questions for classmates on a course forum (e.g., a Piazza thread per week); the instructor curates the best for review sessions.
• Embedded video questions — platforms like Edpuzzle insert instructor questions at timestamps in video, which learners can be asked to extend with their own questions before submission.

Key Sources¶

• 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
• King, A. (1991). Effects of training in strategic questioning on children's problem-solving performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 83(3), 307–317. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.83.3.307
• 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
• Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students' learning with effective learning techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58. doi:10.1177/1529100612453266