Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 2013; 38 (12): 66-78This study investigated the extent to which teachers’
questioning techniques and the way teachers handled students’ responses
facilitated students’ learning and promoted their thinking skills. The
study focused on three secondary schools in Dar es Salaam. The data
collection process involved classroom observations during chemistry
lessons and interviews of 10 chemistry teachers. The findings showed
that 80% of the observed teachers had a moderate ability in using
questioning techniques to measure students’ understanding. The
interesting observation in all schools was that teachers interacted
frequently with active students and bothered less to involve the least
active ones. Moreover, above 80% of all teachers had problems of
promoting students’ thinking by maintaining a balance between the openended
and close-ended questions or between convergent and divergent
questions. Also, the teachers indicated severe weaknesses in guiding
classroom discussions through effective questioning as their abilities in
probing were low. Thus, in-service program for these teachers may
improve their classroom questioning behaviour
