The function of questions in developing a preschooler’s verbal reasoning skills during philosophical group discussions

Effective questioning helps preschoolers to reason verbally during philosophical group discussions. The aim of this study was to identify which researcher’s questions preschoolers respond to with verbal reasoning during such discussions. The data were collected through video-recorded group discussions. A total of 1567 questions and 1119 verbal reasons were analysed using mixed-methods. The findings showed that during 20 philosophical group discussions, researchers asked three types of questions: (1) open-ended questions (45.64%) with four functions: Initiating, interpretation, process, and speculative; (2) closed-ended questions (30.5%) with two functions: Yes/No, choice; and (3) off discussion questions (23.86%). Results indicate that the preschoolers yielded proportionally the most verbal reasons at different levels (association based on reality; connection between the words; sense-making explanation) in response to interpretation, process and Yes/No questions.