Questions and interactivity in Arts and Science lecture introductions

In the context of higher education, lecturer questioning is a feasible means to encourage active student participation in a large class setting. Questions are useful for both instructional interactional purposes but there may be a disciplinary difference in questioning practices. This study examined arts and science lecturers’ use of questions in lecture introductions and student responses to the questions. Forty-seven lecture introductions delivered in English in a Malaysian university were audio taped and transcribed. Questions were categorized into display, echoic, indirect, referential and rhetorical questions. The analysis of 14 hours of lecture introduction discourse showed that 1001 questions were asked at the rate of one question per minute, indicating extensive use of questions in the lecture introductions examined. The arts lecturers tended to ask more questions during the lecture introduction but both groups relied on display questions and echoic questions. Only 22.18% of the questions were answered, with better response from the arts students. The lecturers asked more display questions, but these questions were less likely to be answered compared to referential questions. However, the type of question with the best response was the indirect question. The results showed that questions were mainly for activating students’ prior knowledge.