Month: September 2017

‘Finding out about others: the skill of questioning’, in Hargie, O. (2011) Skilled Interpersonal Communication: Research, Theory and Practice. 5^th ed. London: Routledge, Chapter 5, p117-153.

 

The aim of the chapter is to convey the many different methods of questioning. It also discusses the use of questions, the skill behind them and how they are effective in certain situations.

There are many themes than run throughout this chapter. Acquisition is a prominent theme throughout the chapter as it discusses the skills of questions and how to achieve the answers being sought after. Children is another theme which examines the effect on how they are questioned in certain ways. For example, when they are asked a double question, they do not understand what exactly they are being asked. In addition to this, knowledge is a key theme as it provides us with information we need to be able to ask the most accurate questions in certain situations.

Hargie discusses the topic of Clearinghouse probes. The purpose of this probe was to ensure that all the important information had been revealed. He claimed that sensitivity is an important factor when being interviewed and that gentle nudges should be used to ensure the interviewee is being attentive. Hargie used a source from Sevilla (1999) to show examples of lawyer’s questions.

I agree with the majority of information in this chapter as the examples given by Hargie are relatable.  However, I disagree with the fact that pauses need to be a minimum of three seconds as stated before in the paragraph if children are given a slightly longer time they increase the length of their responses: “increased average ‘wait-time’…length of these responses increased.”

Pedagogic tradition was a term that was unfamiliar. According to the Critical Dictionary of Education. ‘pedagogy’ is the principles of teaching. It has three key aspects which are: methodology, rationale, and reflection.

Conversational lead questions are a concept mentioned by Hargie. People use these every day. It is a conversation that normally expects a definite response. This ensures that the conversation flows, and gives the impression of being kind and welcoming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Throughout Chapter 5 of Hargie 2011, ‘Finding out about others: the skill of questioning’, the important concept of questioning is explored. The main idea of the text is to show that although initially questioning may seem like a simple skill, it is actually a very diverse and complex skill. There are many ideas surrounding questions in the chapter, but the main themes could be described as: what are questions,  how we use questions, types of questions and related aspects of questions.

An important issue raised in the article was by Walker, 1999; Zajac et al, 2003; Krahenbuhl and Blades, 2006; Pipe et al, 2007. They said that, “There is a growing volume of research to show that leading questions have a particularly distorting effect upon the responses of children”. For me this idea is an important one, because as student teachers we must be aware that children are much more easily influenced than adults. Leading questions must be used with caution or completely avoided when interviewing children.

There are many arguments made in the text but the one that stands out to me is by Walterman et al (2001:477), they said that, “Asking questions is a fundamental part of communication and as such will be an important factor in the work of many professionals”. I strongly agree with this argument as without questioning, communication in any situation would breakdown.

Though most of the article seems to discuss many relevant issues one thing that I disagreed with was that interactive questions are not effective with large audiences. Although I understand that only a few people would have the opportunity to answer the question, the remaining people would still be thinking about it and listening to other responses would give them a insight into other interpretations of the question. Rhetorical questions are suggested as an alternative to interactive questions, but in my opinion both types of question serve an important purpose but in different ways.

 

References:

‘Finding out about others: the skill of questioning’, in Hargie, O. (2011) Skilled Interpersonal Communication: Research, Theory and Practice. 5^th ed. London: Routledge.

 

 

Before starting this course the subject which I was most concerned about was Maths…I never thought the day would come when I was more confident in a Maths class than an English class. However after punctuation and grammar week last week in literacy for understanding I now feel that way.

It is tough going back to basics and realising the gaps in your own knowledge however on reflection I know more now than I did at the start of the class, I am not the only one who found this class challenging and I can now build upon this in order to one day be both competent and confident in my own abilities when teaching this to children (So they don’t one day go through this same feeling!). Moving on from that class I now question every over-used apostrophe, comma and semicolon and whether I really need them in my sentence!

I am finding all of the classes interesting however I am especially enjoying maths and situated communication as for me so far the both have the most link to practice. I find it extremely interesting learning about how we will one day teach these same concepts to our own class. All the teachers also clearly have a love for the subject they are teaching, especially the workshops in Performance Studio three. Reflecting on what we have been learning in Situated Communication students pick up on your attitude and the fun and love for the subject in that workshop really is infectious. I hope one day to be able to bring the same level of enthusiasm and love for learning to classes of children with ‘enthusiasm and motivation or learning’ (Scottish Government, 2009).

 

Reference List

East Lothian Council (2017) The Purpose of the Curriculum [Online] Available at:http://www.eastlothian.gov.uk/info/878/schools/224/the_purpose_of_the_curriculum

Accessed:  26/009/2017

Within chapter five of the ‘Finding out about others: the skill of questioning’ book by Hargie (2011) it explores the importance of questions, as they are incorporated within a lot of interpersonal encounters.  There are many different sections within this chapter, such as ‘Purposes of questions’, ‘Probing questions’ and ‘Types of questions.’ Under the section ‘Purposes of questions’ it gives a range of different examples in which questions are used, for example – teachers when teaching their class and sales workers trying to pitch to members of the public.  The ‘Probing questions’ section discusses how questions can be used to prompt people to reply to what others have asked them.  The ‘Types of questions’ section goes into a large amount of detail about recall and process questions, affective questions, leading questions and open and closed questions.  Research mentioned during this section is (Dickson et al, 1997), in which they concluded during counselling that open questions are more effective.  They backed up this evidence with three bullet points which state their opinion such as, open questions produce accurate responses.  However, personally I don’t completely agree with this statement as I feel as though every question type is effective in different ways.  To back up my feelings about this, I think more research should be done to strengthen their argument that open questions are more effective, as I do not think it is fair to just include one source of research from the same kind of environment.

There are also some arguments within this chapter, especially under the ‘Multiple questions’ section, as it starts off by mentioning that multiple questions can be useful in certain circumstances, however it then talks about how they are “wasteful.”  The word wasteful is then indicating that multiple questions are useful at no point in time – this completely contradicting what was said to start with.  I personally found the first paragraph of the chapter beneficial as it made me grasp the concept of just how important questions are, as one teacher portrayed this through a learning experience.  During a lesson she made a rule that nobody was allowed to ask a question, however she quickly realised communication was vague after that, and the children ended up asking questions unintentionally.

 

References:

‘Finding out about others: the skill of questioning’, in Hargie, O. (2011) Skilled Interpersonal Communication: Research, Theory and Practice. 5th ed. London: Routledge.

I applied for the BA (hons) Education in Ayr last year while I was at school and after interview process I became unsuccessful. My second option was to go and do a year at college doing my HNC Childhood Practice. When it came to UCAS application I began to wonder if I should apply for Education again and I decided it was the best option as I have wanted to be a primary teacher as long as I can remember. When I used to stand in my bedroom with a magnetic white board and pretend to teach my students (my teddy bear and dolls).

Getting accepted into UWS the second time applying I felt overwhelmed and excited to start the course, as it has always been my dream. The first four weeks have went in really fast and I have met a few new friends. I felt nervous going into a new environment becoming the first year student again and was very nervous at the point of making new friends and speaking to new people.

There has been mass amounts of information given to me over the past four weeks and I feel like it is a lot to take in. I hope that over the next few weeks everything begins to settle in my mind and everything becomes clearer on what I have to do and how to find different things on Moodle.

I am not very confident in academic writing or used to regularly blogging but I hope that over the next few years it improves and I become confident in both.

I can not wait to see what the next four years has in store for me.