Overall, I feel that the main aim of this chapter is to establish the importance of questions and how they are vital in the communication factor amongst humanity. Prior to reading this chapter my knowledge of questions was minimal as I thought they were a simple form of communication used to find out information, however, this could not be further from the truth as Hargie explores the idea that questions are very complex and there is more to them than it may seem. The main themes explored and developed throughout this chapter are the significance of questions, the several types of questions, the powerful effect questions have on everyone and the importance of questions in different environments, in particular in the classroom.
In relation to the significance of questions in various environments, I am going to focus on the particular importance of questions in the classroom. Hargie states that questions are the norm of everyday life and without questions conversation would seize to exist. To show his theory that questions are the basis of all young children’s development and maturation, Hargie gives evidence from an experiment conducted by Core (1940) which shows that in 6 classes on average the teacher asked a question once every 72 seconds, this strongly supports the point that questions are heavily relied upon for learning in the classroom environment and without questions children would not learn new information or how to use the key skill of communication.
Another key point raised by Hargie is that, in a classroom environment especially, many pupils find it harder as they grow in age to ask questions or answer out in class due to the fear of being judged by their fellow peers shown in the study by Dillion (1988). Due to own experience and evidence I have gathered from other people, I find this study to be immensely true as I think it is in some way instinctive to be less confident when in a room with 30 people or more.
I would say that weeding my way through this chapter I agreed with many points raised by Hargie, however, one thing I disagreed upon is the fact that Hargie said open questions are better suited to those who had spent at least a year in college than those who had left after secondary school (Schatzman and Struss, 1956). I personally would say that this statement is false due to the fact open questions should be open to everyone as they can give everyone an opportunity to feel more relaxed and not just give one straight answer. Instead they can express themselves fully and through this a teacher or whoever it may be can identify much more about a pupil for example if they struggle with something or if they have a sound understanding.
Reference list:
‘Finding out about others: the skill of questioning’, in Hargie, O. (2011) Skilled Interpersonal Communication: Research, Theory and Practice.5th ed. London: Routledge