Questioning is an important teacher behaviour within PE. It is a key part of Rosenshine’s principles of instruction (2012). His research of master teachers and cognitive science found that effective teachers asked a high number of questions, which acted as supportive mechanism of pupils learning, especially if those questions encouraged the explanation of the processes they used to answer the question as well. It is also a teaching behaviour that is much more complex than first appearance. Loughran (2010) highlights the many moving parts that questioning comprises of; frequency, distribution, how responses are dealt with, directed at individual, group or class, teacher or student generated questions, question type (such as open or closed) or questioning technique (such as numbered heads together).
However its lack of importance and complexity seems to be missing from the recent Ofsted Research Review (2022) which looks into the factors that influence the quality of PE in schools in England. Whilst it is mentioned, particularly in its role for checking for understanding and developing declarative knowledge, it does not have its own section in pedagogy like instruction, modelling, practice and feedback do. Questioning can underpin all those as good questions actively involve pupils in the thinking process. It is beneficial to do this for many reasons, but two key ones are firstly getting children to think hard about what they are doing which can support their learning and secondly it can give the PE Teacher information that can help to inform their future professional judgement and decision making. Whilst having a range of questioning types and techniques to draw upon is useful, what might be just as beneficial is having a clear idea of how you wish to involve the children in the thinking process and what type of information you wish to generate from that.
Lemov (2020) highlights that we need to be intentional with questioning if we want it to be effective (and get better at it as a teaching behaviour) and he offers a categorisation, based on purpose, that is useful for PE teachers to consider (see table below). There are five purposes in his categorisation; discovery, application, perception, check for understanding and knowledge building. In addition I would add the purpose of personal relevance.
| Question Category |
| Knowledge Building – to help pupils with the retention of declarative knowledge |
| Check for Understanding – to find gaps in pupils declarative knowledge |
| Application – to get pupils to apply something they already to know to a problem or situation |
| Discovery – to get pupils to define the problems they are facing and generate potential solutions |
| Perception – to find out pupils are seeing and guide their vision to what to look for |
| Personal Relevance – to find out what pupils are feeling, value, like and dislike and how this might link to life beyond PE |
How does this work in practice? Take for example a Year 6 unit of work on striking and fielding games where the focus has been learning the basic principles of attacking play and applying them to game situations. In front of you is Aman who has just been struck out quickly in a small sided game of danish long ball. The categorisation can be applied to this situation to help you decide what you wish Aman to think about and what information you wish to generate to help you both make decisions on what to do next.
- You may wish to help Aman to retain knowledge with regards to the principles of play: What are the three attacking principles of play in striking and fielding games?
- You may wish to check Aman’s understanding of the principles of play in a game situation: When batting what are your priorities? Does this change depending on what is happening in the game? (You can draw upon the principles of play to help you answer).
- You may wish to get Aman to think about applying what he already knows: The ball was pitched very close to your feet, what principle of play in attack should be your priority here and why?
- You may wish to get Aman to think about generating new solutions to problems: When the fielders are far away from you what options do you have as the batter? Which might be the best options and why? (This question could be discussed with others on his team).
- You may wish to find out what Aman is perceiving in the game when batting: Before the pitcher throws the ball at you what do you look at and why? From this you might help to guide Aman’s attention to important cues that can help him better coordinate his movement and enhance his decision making.
- You may wish to find out how Aman is feeling after getting out: How are you feeling about getting out and is there anything we can do to help you enjoy the game more?
If we want questioning to support children’s learning in PE and PE teachers understanding of that learning then we need to be much more deliberate about our questioning. Different categories of question can encourage different types of thinking and generate different types of information for us to use and better respond to what is emerging in front of us. The nature of our teaching behaviours and decisions matter as they directly influence children’s learning and their experience of PE, and whilst expanding your repertoire of questioning types and techniques is important professional development, expertise is derived not just by asking them but asking them with a clear purpose and reason.
Previous blogs on questioning:
Why Asking Questions Might Not Be the Best Way to Teach
Questioning for games based approaches
Rectifying a week of ineffective questioning
drowningintheshallow 
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