Text-Based and Knowledge Based Questioning by Children

Three studies investigated the ability of elementary school children to ask and recognize educationally productive questions. Knowledge-based questions formulated in advance of instruction were found to be of a higher order than text-based questions produced after exposure to text materials. Depending on familiarity of the topic, knowledge-based questions varied between basic questions asking for information needed for orientation to a topic and "wonderment' questions often aimed at explanation or at resolving discrepancies in knowledge. Children's questions are seen as a potentially valuable resource in education but one that requires a different kind of classroom community from the several kinds commonly found. The potential of a computer-based medium, computer-supported intentional learning environments, for supporting a knowledge-building community is briefly considered.