Raising Questions About Open-Ended Questions and Children’s Vocabulary

• In Event: Fostering Children’s Early Curiosity, Engagement and Question-Asking Behavior

Abstract

Adults’ questions help children discover knowledge that is difficult to obtain through observation (Cristofaro & Tamis-LeMonda, 2011; Silva et al., 2014). Question-asking promotes children’s vocabulary growth at home and school (Cristafaro & Tamis-LeMonda, 2011; Walsh & Rose, 2013) and open-ended questions (OEQs) (i.e., questions with multiple possible answers) benefit children’s vocabulary development more than closed-ended questions (CEQs) (i.e., questions with single answers) (Leech et al., 2013; Wasik & Iannone-Campbell, 2012). A large literature encourages educators to ask questions to build children’s knowledge and language, but teachers’ question-asking - particularly with thought-provoking OEQs - is rare compared to the use of directives or declarative statements (Dickinson et al., 2008; Massey et al., 2008). This project asks whether instructional coaches’ question use (particularly OEQs), relative to other speech in a Head Start classroom, promotes students’ targeted vocabulary outcomes. It further explores how students’ question responsiveness affects those outcomes. In a well-controlled vocabulary learning study with 36 Head Start students (MAge = 4.53 yrs.), we taught 20 words in sets of 5 on alternating days across two consecutive weeks. Outcomes included the percentage of question use in classrooms with emphasis on the OEQs and CEQs asked by coaches and answered by students.

We hypothesized that the number of OEQs students answered, adjusted for intervention attendance, would significantly predict receptive and expressive vocabulary growth from a pre- test baseline. However, the number of OEQs students heard would not significantly predict those outcomes. We hypothesized maternal education would moderate students’ OEQ responsiveness.

We administered pre- and post-tests of receptive and expressive vocabulary before and after the intervention, respectively, as described by Toub and colleagues (2018). Our study evaluated transcripts of coach-student dialogue from vocabulary-focused play sessions using Computerized Language Analysis (CLAN), counting frequencies of questions asked, questions answered, definitions, and the target word exposure students received. We evaluated dialogue frequencies against receptive and expressive vocabulary growth from pre- to post-test using hierarchical regression.

Despite instructing coaches to use at least one OEQ and one CEQ per target word per intervention session, students were exposed to target words 215 times on average, but a relatively small percentage of those exposures were questions. Of those questions, a minority were open- ended. Further results indicated a significant effect of students’ age on their receptive vocabulary growth, F(1, 27) = 7.59, p = .01. Neither OEQ (p = .55) nor CEQ (p = .59) responsiveness significantly predicted this outcome with age, English proficiency, maternal education, and OEQ or CEQ exposure as covariates. Students’ English proficiency (p = .27), maternal education (p = .45), and question exposure (p = .33 for OEQs, .47 for CEQs) did not predict receptive vocabulary growth. No predictors significantly related to students’ expressive vocabulary growth. Following several analyses, these results fail to support our hypothesis investigating students’ OEQ responsiveness and vocabulary growth. Vocabulary benefits associated with students’ OEQ engagement (Wasik & Hindman, 2011, 2013) may depend on an OEQ exposure threshold to emerge, particularly in a brief intervention with OEQs among other types of target vocabulary exposure.

Authors

• Elias Blinkoff, Temple University
  Presenting Author

• Hande Ilgaz, Bilkent University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lien Vu, University of Delaware
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kathy A Hirsh-Pasek, Temple University
  Non-Presenting Author