GIFT 
 UL 24 1913 
 
 A Study of Questioning 
 
 BY 
 SOSHICHI YAMADA 
 
 Clark University 
 
 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF 
 CLARK UNIVERSITY, WORCESTER, MASS., IN PARTIAL 
 FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE 
 DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ACCEPTED 
 ON THE RECOMMENDATION OF WILLIAM H. BURNHAM 
 
 Reprinted mmi the PKUA^H,: IXAKV 
 
 June, 1913, Vol. XX, pp. 129-186 
 
A Study of Questioning 
 
 BY 
 SOSHICHI YAMADA 
 
 Clark University 
 
 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF 
 CLARK UNIVERSITY, WORCESTER, MASS., IN PARTIAL 
 FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE 
 DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ACCEPTED 
 ON THE RECOMMENDATION OF WILLIAM H. BURNHAM 
 
 Reprinted from the PEDAGOGICAL SEMINARY 
 June, 1913, Vol. XX, pp. 129-186 
 
I 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING* 
 
 By SOSHICHI YAMADA, Clark University 
 
 'PREFACE 
 
 Since Socrates the question method has occupied a 
 prominent place in the technique of instruction. " To question 
 well," says De Garmo (19. p. 179), " is to teach well. In the 
 skillful use of the question more than in anything else lies the 
 fine art of teaching." Indeed, " the art of correct questioning 
 has a highly significant effect upon the mental develop- 
 ment, . . . ." (32. pp. 331-332.) 
 
 To-day more than two-thirds of the school time is occupied 
 with questions and answers; but unfortunately the general 
 assumption that we know by intuition when and how to ask 
 questions kept investigators from the study of the psychology 
 of questioning until the dawn of this century when the genius 
 of Alfred Binet inspired him to attempt the solution of the 
 problem (6. p. 244). Naturally the majority of teachers 
 whom we hire to put questions to our children ask questions 
 for months and years without ever knowing the psychology 
 of what they are doing, hence without ever taking into account 
 what mental changes a question calls forth, what emotional 
 states it arouses in the pupil's mind, how such resulting states 
 influence the course of ideation and thinking, and so forth. 
 If the teachers do not know anything about these changes, 
 they are not qualified for teachers. Thus it is of prime 
 importance for educators to study the influence of questioning 
 upon answers and upon the mental development of the child. 
 
 * The writer wishes to express his hearty thanks to Drs. W. H. 
 Burnham and Theodate L. Smith of Clark University and to Messrs. 
 Vermille and Butler, principals of the Dix St. and Edgeworth 
 St. schools, for their advice and assistance in this investigation. 
 
 267576 
 
130 A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 The question rightly used is a medium through which a 
 teacher comes into the closest touch affectively with her pupil. 
 The pupil's reaction-time and the mode of reaction to the given 
 question will reveal his mental type and characteristics; for 
 instance, whether he is of visual, auditory, motor, or 
 mixed type ; whether his temperament is sanguine, phlegmatic, 
 melancholic, etc. ; or again whether he is able to impress 
 something upon his mind (memory) with ease or difficulty, 
 whether he forgets quickly or slowly, whether he can retain a 
 great mass of ideas or only scanty fragments ; etc. All these 
 analytical observations are the indispensable task of a teacher 
 in real dynamic education; for this knowledge alone will 
 furnish the principles of individual psychology. Care, 
 however, should be taken that the observations be made 
 scientifically. The teacher, through such diagnosis, will 
 discover technique for further questioning. The question is, 
 thus, a tool for psychological analysis and diagnosis. 
 
 Pedagogically, the purpose of questioning is manifold. 
 
 1. It is to awaken the pupils to self-activity, to stimulate 
 them to think. It gives a teacher an opportunity for directing 
 and training the thought processes of her pupils. 
 
 2. It is to cultivate the fine art of good expression. A 
 habit of clear, concise and discriminating enunciation and of 
 an agreeable intonation is one of the most attractive and 
 highest gifts which any teacher can bestow upon a child. 
 
 3. It is a means of testing 'the depth of the pupil's mind. 
 Through a series of skillful questions, the teacher brings to 
 light the strength and weakness of his knowledge, so that she 
 may find out his intellectual status. 
 
 If the aim of the question is to train the processes of thought 
 and expression, what will be the result when a teacher,, in one 
 class period, say, of forty minutes, asks over eighty questions 
 (65. p. n) and gets as many answers? What chance can 
 there be for orderly association and deep accurate impression 
 of ideas, or for a complete expression of thought? Further- 
 more the nervous tension of the pupils under such a pressure 
 must be considered. A new science of school hygiene has 
 arisen which is dealing with the problem of the physical as well 
 as mental conditions of children in order that they may be able 
 to do more work without injury. But the question as to 
 whether the children may not make better progress in orderly 
 association, originality, and preciseness of thought and 
 expression, if given more freedom and time for thinking and 
 expressing their thought as they have when engaged in their 
 own activities, has not yet received due consideration. Time is 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 131 
 
 required to digest impressions and translate them into clear 
 and definite ideas. Will not a " lack of time and leisure 
 conduce to habits of speedy, but snapshot and superficial 
 judgment?" (20. p. 37.) 
 
 I do plead for the millions^ of the children who now live in 
 agony the school years of their lives because of this dragon of 
 misguided questioning now so universally rampant in our 
 schools. " Every question," says Matthias (41. p. 79), " must 
 strengthen the mental power of the pupil, sharpen his under- 
 standing, advance his knowledge, develop his speech-power. 
 Hence one should not put any question, in which the pupil 
 needs to think nothing or little," nor should questions be asked 
 without giving sufficient time for purposive thinking and a 
 complete expression of thought. Is it, however, possible to 
 acquire the art of questioning by practice? It may be a 
 possible attainment with practice of the most intelligent 
 sort, but mere practice, blind and mechanical, however 
 enthusiastic a practitioner may be, will never attain the 
 desired end. Thousands and thousands of teachers practice 
 questioning hourly and daily, year after year, and yet are no 
 better off than when they began. The art of questioning can 
 not be mastered without an accurate knowledge of its funda- 
 mental principles. In other words, mere practice is not suffi- 
 cient to teach one the psychology of questioning. 
 
 From this pedagogical and psychological point of view, the 
 writer has studied the relation between question and answer. 
 
 EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS 
 
 The study of the psychology of questioning is very recent. 
 Since Binet (6. pp. 244-324) attempted the solution of this 
 problem, there has followed a series of experimental investiga- 
 tions among which the studies of Stern, Wreschner, Lipmann, 
 Lobsien, and Borst are specially prominent. 
 
 Two methods have chiefly been used : the picture method 
 (Bildmethode) and the objective method (Wirklichkeits- 
 methode). In the first the presentation of pictures, in the 
 second objects or events of real life, are used as material in 
 regard to which testimony (Aussage) is obtained in two ways : 
 by " free spontaneous report or narrative " (Bericht) (62. 
 p. 270) and by asking questions, the so-called " interroga- 
 tory " (Verh'6) or Whipple's "deposition." Hereafter these 
 German terms will be used. 
 
 Binet first used the picture method and tried to work out 
 the mechanism of the personal influence of questions upon 
 children. He began by addressing the children as follows: 
 
 " My friends, we are going to make an experiment, to dis- 
 
132 A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 
 cover if you have a good memory, a memory better than that 
 of your comrades ; I am going to show you a pasteboard which 
 is here hidden behind that screen; on the pasteboard certain 
 objects will be seen. I shall show you them for twelve 
 seconds ; twelve seconds, look at them attentively. It 
 is a very short time, it is not a minute; a minute consists of 
 sixty seconds; twelve seconds will pass by very quickly. It 
 is thus necessary not to lose this precious time; make use of 
 it in your observation of the objects very carefully, for as 
 soon as twelve seconds elapse, I shall take the pasteboard 
 away from you, and then I shall put a number of questions 
 upon what you have seen. Many of the questions are upon 
 the small details, and you are requested to answer exactly. 
 Do you understand ? Is it clear to you ? " With this explana- 
 tion, which, Binet says, has almost always had the effect to 
 excite the curiosity and enthusiasm of the child, he showed the 
 following six objects pasted on a card: a penny, a button, a 
 stamp, a label, a photograph and a picture. The number of 
 observers was twenty-five, all of the primary school, ranging 
 in age from nine to twelve years. 
 
 Here the object was to provoke, in the observers, errors of 
 the forced memory, and to discover the amount of error through 
 imagination. Hence instead of asking their spontaneous 
 description of each object, he first asked simply an enumera- 
 tion of the objects and then put a series of questions, forty-one 
 in all. The results were very poor compared with those 
 obtained by other investigators, because of the very brief time 
 of exposure. The percentage of the right and the false 
 answers was 58.2 and 41.8 respectively. (6. pp. 262-269.) 
 
 Then the method of spontaneous narrative was tried, 
 repeating the same test upon a different group of children 
 without asking any questions, that is, the children simply wrote 
 what they saw and remembered, the only recommendation 
 being not to be contented with naming the objects, but to 
 describe all the details. The number of the pupils tested was 
 twelve, all of the upper class of the primary school, with the 
 same conditions as far as possible. The results were: two 
 pupils committed no error; two committed one error; one 
 committed two ; four, three ; and three, four errors ; while in 
 the experiment of the forced memory, the minimum of error 
 was five and the maximum was thirteen. (6. pp. 262-269.) 
 
 It is extremely probable that, if one forces the memory by 
 suggestion, one may provoke a great number of errors. 
 Thus Binet made three more tests by the use of the written 
 questions. The same objects were shown as before. A 
 number of children of ages nine to twelve were divided into 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 
 133 
 
 three groups and each group received a different set of the 
 questions. The first was intended to force memory, e. g., 
 " How is the button fixed ? " The second was intended to 
 produce a moderate suggestion, e. g., the form of the questions 
 was suggestive of false affirmation, for example : " Isn't the 
 button fastened with thread ? " The third gave a strong sug- 
 gestion, e. g., " What is the color of the thread which passes 
 through the holes of the button and fixes it to the card ? " 
 
 As Binet expected, the majority of his observers accepted 
 suggestions and answered as if the memory images had been 
 true and spontaneous as is seen from the following table. 
 (6. p. 313.) 
 
 Questionnaire 
 
 Questionnaire 
 
 Questionnaire 
 
 I 
 
 II 
 
 III 
 
 5 children 
 
 n children 
 
 ii children 
 
 r 
 
 f 
 
 r 
 
 f 
 
 r 
 
 f 
 
 8.1 
 
 2.9 
 
 8.09 
 
 4.9 
 
 5-09 
 
 7-9 
 
 73-6% 
 
 26.4% 
 
 63-3% 
 
 37-7% 
 
 39-2% 
 
 60.8% 
 
 In this and the following tables, 
 
 r equals number of items rightly reported ; 
 
 f " " " falsely 
 
 u " uncertain " 
 
 The surprisingly high percentage of the errors in case of 
 the third questionnaire shows how few of the children have 
 sufficient independence of thinking and will-power to 
 acknowledge and refuse the false suggestions. Twelve normal 
 school students made the same kind of errors as the children 
 did, though not so gross. (6. pp. 325-329.) 
 
 Binet concludes as follows : A full and concise report may 
 be made and yet be false. (6. p. 285.) The experiment of 
 the forced memory is subjected to error more than that of 
 the spontaneous memory (6. p. 294). The method of sug- 
 gestion by the written questions is powerful enough to influ- 
 ence not only children under twelve, but also young people of 
 eighteen years of age (6. p. 329), and more so with the oral 
 questioning. Hence if you desire a faithful testimony from a 
 child, you must not ask him any question, nor command him 
 to make an oral report, but require him to write spontaneously 
 what he knows, since children are, even at the age of twelve, 
 still incapable of distinguishing between fact and fiction or 
 
134 
 
 A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 
 invention by imagination and reasoning. " How many adults 
 are not grown up children in this respect ! " adds Seashore in 
 his review of Binet's " La Suggestibilite." 
 
 Following Binet, Stern performed several experiments on 
 the same problem. One of them was carried out in the year 
 1902 with forty-seven observers of from seven to nineteen 
 years of age of both sexes. After an introductory statement, 
 almost the same as Binet's, Stern hands a picture, well known 
 now as the Bauernstube (peasant room) to the observer to 
 look at it attentively in bright day light for one minute, after 
 which period he takes the picture away and asks the observer 
 to describe what he has seen. If the observer begins to hesi- 
 tate in his explanation, the experimenter says quietly: " Think 
 of it; something may probably come to you yet." If the 
 observer is again silent, the experimenter asks : " Does 
 nothing occur to your mind any more ? " Upon the answer : 
 " no," the experimenter goes on : " Now I shall ask you a 
 little more, and certainly something will come to your mind. 
 But if you do not know any answer to the given questions, 
 just say : ' I do not know.' It will not harm you at all, even 
 if you do not know." Stern allowed one minute for observa- 
 tion in order that a thorough comprehension and better 
 recollection might be obtained. The resistance to falsification 
 through suggestion was thus increased. Twelve suggestive 
 questions were mixed with the indifferent questions to divert 
 suspicion, and the suggestive questions were, like the second 
 questionnaire of Binet, purely " questions " that suggested the 
 answer " yes." Each question including the suggestive one 
 was asked only once in the most indifferent tone, and 
 answered orally. The results are shown in the following 
 table. (58. pp. 295-321.) 
 
 
 
 f 
 
 
 r 
 
 f 
 
 
 
 
 
 r+f 
 
 r+f 
 
 Bericht 
 
 24 
 
 I . c 
 
 
 % 
 
 04 
 
 % 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 VerhSr 
 
 ? e 
 
 17 I 
 
 6 7 
 
 6? 
 
 7 -2 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Normal q 
 
 in % 
 66 
 
 in% 
 26 
 
 in% 
 8 
 
 72 . 7 
 
 27.7 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sujjgr q . . 
 
 en 
 
 2 < 
 
 16 
 
 70 . 7 
 
 20 . 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Thus Stern concludes that errorless testimony is not the 
 rule but the exception ; that the Bericht is far more trust- 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 135 
 
 worthy than the Verhor; that every question has a suggestive 
 influence ; etc. 
 
 Ranschburg (48), with thirty feeble-minded children of 
 ages from eleven to seventeen; Rodenwaldt (50), with fifty 
 soldiers of from nineteen to twenty-three years of age; and 
 Revesz (49), with twenty-six morally depraved pupils ranging 
 in age from nine to fifteen, made experiments after the 
 same method and with the same picture Stern used; 
 Oppenheim (45), with thirty girls of from ten to twelve 
 years of age, in 1904, with three pictures named Bauern- 
 stube, Feld, and Wasser, after Stern's method, and Breukink 
 (n), with 108 adult observers repeating the experiment 
 of Oppenheim, obtained similar results. In the experi- 
 ments of Oppenheim questions and answers were given 
 orally, while with Breukink they were in written form. The 
 former experimenter, from the second test on, encouraged 
 her observers to do better work, telling them that many false 
 answers had been given. This, undoubtedly, warned the 
 observers against the influence of the questions, especially 
 against the suggestive ones, so that a better result was 
 obtained in the later than in the earlier experiments. The 
 educability of children in the giving of testimony is clearly 
 observed in both cases. 
 
 Wreschner (70), dissatisfied with the method of Stern in 
 regard to the Bericht, used his own method, the so- 
 called examination-method (Priifungs-methode). According 
 to his explanation, its chief characteristic is that exactly 
 specialised themes for testimony are given to the observers ; 
 it has the advantage of making conditions similar for all 
 observers, and obtains an equal number of statements 
 (Angaben) from all observers, so that the number of the 
 statements, omissions and errors can be exactly calculable, etc. 
 He notes that this method is closely connected with the 
 Verhor, but he seems rather to ignore or at least to dis- 
 regard its suggestive influence, as well as that of the usual 
 interrogatory method. He used a picture called " Gross- 
 vater" with nine observers. A spontaneous report was given 
 immediately after an observation of one minute ; the second 
 was given after seven days ; and the so-called examination- 
 method was used after seven days for four observers and also 
 after seventeen days for the other five observers (70. p. 174). 
 The results by this method also were similar (70. pp. 174-5). 
 
 Thus it is seen that the examination method like the Verhor 
 raises many statements from latency into actuality, but, at 
 the same time, it produces many errors, undoubtedly due to 
 suggestive influence caused by narrowing the conscious field. 
 
136 A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 
 Borst (9 and 10) who followed partly Wreschner's method 
 so that there were supposedly no suggestive questions in her 
 experiments, though there were in reality such; Cohn and 
 Gent (17), with and without distraction of attention during 
 the observation of the pictures; and Dieffenbach (16) with 
 ninety-eight observers of ages from seven to twenty, obtained 
 results similar to those already given. 
 
 We now turn from the experimental results by the picture 
 method to those of the objective method (Wirklichkeits- 
 methode) and cite a few of the results. In the winter of 1903 
 and 1904 an experiment was made by Stern (61) on the 
 students in his psychological seminary at the University. The 
 procedure was as follows: A gentleman steps into the 
 seminary, wishes to talk with the lecturer (Stern), hands 
 the latter, with a few words, a package of manuscript, asks 
 the latter's permission to make use of the library in the 
 seminary-room, takes up a book, goes out after five minutes 
 taking the book with him and is asked by the lecturer (Stern) 
 to wait outside for the latter until the close of the seminary." 
 The number of the observers were fifteen, six women teachers 
 and nine students. After eight days the Bericht and Verhbr 
 took place in writing. The result (61. pp. 17-22) was: 
 With the Bericht the true statements amounted to 75% and 
 the false statements to 25% ; with the Verhor 50.5% and 
 49-5% respectively. 
 
 So, too, in the summer of 1904, Lisst (36) with twenty-two 
 students, and Rohde (51) in 1907 with neuropathological 
 but mentally sound patients, arrived at conclusions similar 
 to those of Stern. 
 
 Suggestibility has hitherto almost always been investigated 
 by introducing suggestive questions among the normal ques- 
 tions and by a comparison between results obtained through 
 the normal and suggestive questions. This method is not 
 entirely trustworthy, since the suggestive questions may refer 
 to different objects, and the different objects are not retained 
 in memory with equal clearness. (35. pp. 418 ff.) 
 
 This criticism may be avoided, if one investigates the 
 memory for one and the same object by differently formulated 
 questions. But naturally these different questions can not be 
 addressed to one and the same person, hence one must put 
 them to different persons as follows : The questions about an 
 object (i) : to the person (A) in the form (a), namely with- 
 out suggestion, to the person (B) in the form (b) or with 
 simple suggestion, and to the (C) in the form (c) of strong 
 suggestion. This way Binet (6. pp. 296 ff ) proceeded. But 
 it may be objected that different persons are asked different 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 137 
 
 questions. This objection can, however, be avoided, if one 
 asks further questions about the object (II) : to the person 
 (A) in the form (b), to (B) in the form of (c) and to (C) 
 in the form of (a) ; and further about the object (III) : to 
 (A) in the form of (c), to (B) in (a) and to (C) in the 
 form (b). 
 
 With this in view, Lipmann and Wendriner (35. pp. 
 418 ff), in the year 1904, made an experiment on twelve 
 children of ages from four to six, using the picture called 
 the ' Bauernstube! The questions were of three kinds, 
 namely, group (a) was without suggestion, group (b) of an 
 expectant nature, and group (c) contained strong suggestion 
 and was composed of hypothetical and incomplete disjunctive 
 questions. Each child was asked three questions of each 
 group. The results were with group (a), the right statements 
 amounted to 94% and the false to 6% ; with group (b) 75% 
 and 25% respectively and with the group (c) they were 44% 
 and 56% respectively. Because of the testimony by too small 
 children, we can not draw any ultimate inference from such 
 results, but still we can see a general relation among these 
 different questions. Lipmann (33) later made an extensive 
 experiment which gave the writer much valuable material 
 which will be referred to later. 
 
 There are two more important investigations on questioning, 
 one by Franken (22) in 1911 and the other by Bader in 1912. 
 Franken considered the report not only as a product of the 
 intellect, but also of will. With this in view, he tried to test 
 the educability of the power to report in children, that is, 
 whether children can be taught to be more careful in stating 
 that they do or do not know this or that thing. His subjects 
 were 150 pupils from eleven to thirteen years. He arranged 
 200 questions relating to data in history, geography, etc. into 
 two series: one as decisive and the other as determining 
 questions. The first 100 questions begin with the words: 
 " Do you know " so as to be answered merely by " yes " or 
 " no ; " for example, " Do you know on what river Lyons is 
 situated ? " The second hundred questions are so formed that 
 a specific answer is to be given directly, for instance, " On 
 what river is Lyons situated ? " Among other results he 
 found that by this means the pupils can be made more 
 cautious in their answering, though the false answers can not 
 be fully eliminated. Some of the other results will be referred 
 to later on. 
 
 Bader's experiment (3) was to investigate the influence of 
 the question, on reaction-time, the quality and quantity of an 
 
138 A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 
 answer, etc. He used the following nine different forms of 
 questions or rather stimulus words for reactions. (3. pp. 3-4.) 
 
 1. What is the activity of the person designated by 
 the stimulus word ? Stimulus word : " soldier " answer : 
 " Marching." 
 
 2. What idea stands in a customary relation with the 
 number given as a stimulus word ? Stimulus word : " Seven " 
 answer : " Week." And so on. His results are very inter- 
 esting and agree with the writer's view formulated before 
 reading his article. 
 
 To sum up, the chief points of the results obtained by all 
 these experimenters in regard to testimony and questioning 
 are: 
 
 1. The errorless report is more frequent in the Bericht 
 than in the Verhor, though it is the exception and not the rule. 
 
 2. The false statements of the Bericht are from one-half 
 to one-sixth of those of the Verhor. 
 
 3. The range of the Verhor is far greater than that of the 
 Bericht, but at the same time it is accompanied by an increase 
 of errors: 
 
 4. Hence the Bericht is far more trustworthy than the 
 Verhor. 
 
 5. The report given in reply to normal questions is gener- 
 ally far more trustworthy than that to suggestive questions. 
 
 6. The ability to report is educable to a certain extent by 
 practice, warning, or correlation. 
 
 It should, however, be noted that the results above enumer- 
 ated are merely the average of greatly diversified individual 
 reports, and hence show neither any standard nor any rule for 
 individual ability. 
 
 THE WRITER'S EXPERIMENTS 
 
 As a result of their experiments, Binet, Stern and others 
 concluded that a spontaneous report should be asked first and 
 then an interrogatory be given as a supplement to the former, 
 since if questions are asked without a Bericht, there is great 
 danger of falsification of memory induced by the questions 
 which may not be eliminated later on by any means. This 
 is certainly true, but none of these authors have shown how 
 far this is true. 
 
 i. They demanded the Bericht first and then the Verhor, 
 and failed to find out what influence the Bericht has on what 
 has been given in the Verhor, that is, what would be the result, 
 if the Verhor were given first and the Bericht followed. 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 139 
 
 2. Their questions were on points not reported in the 
 Bericht, that is, the questions were not on every point concern- 
 ing the facts under consideration but only on the omitted ones. 
 Although Miss Borst did this, she as well as others ignored 
 or rather failed to find what influence the succeeding Verhor 
 had upon what had been reported in the Bericht. 
 
 These two points are very important for the formulation of 
 any rule in regard to the order or place of the Bericht and the 
 Verhor in the report as a whole. 
 
 With these points in view, experiments were undertaken to 
 determine whether or not the results obtained by the other 
 investigators are applicable in any way to the subject matter 
 in our school curricula. 
 
 Only the following points are considered in this paper. 
 
 1. What is the relation: (i) between the Bericht given 
 first and the Verhor following; (2) between the Verhor first 
 and the Bericht succeeding. 
 
 2. What is the relation between normal and suggestive 
 questions ? 
 
 3. What is the relation between questions suggesting the 
 right answer and questions suggesting the wrong answer? 
 Here by suggestive questions we mean the so-called expectant 
 as well as the ' yes or no ' questions. 
 
 METHOD OF EXPERIMENT 
 
 As our interest is in practical application, we selected 
 our materials from Frye's Grammar School Geography 
 and Adam's Commercial Geography ; the section on the Surface 
 of South America and the section on the Guianas. (See 
 appendix.) The experiments were carried out at two different 
 times, one, at Dix Street School, in February and the other at 
 Edgeworth Street School, in April, 1913, at Worcester, Mass. 
 Both were partly conducted by the teachers of each class and 
 partly by the writer personally, but always under the writer's 
 guidance. 
 
 In the first experiment the number of pupils was ninety, 
 twenty-one from grade 7-1, twenty-seven from 7-2, twenty-six 
 from 8-1, and sixteen from 8-2; but three of grade 7-2 and 
 one of grade 7-1 are not included in our numerical calculation, 
 as they did not finish their work in time. In the second 
 experiment, forty-four pupils took part: eleven from grade 
 7-1, ten from grade 7-2, thirteen from grade 8-1 and ten from 
 grade 8-2. Both of 8-2 were given the section on the Guianas 
 as subject-matter which they reviewed silently for ten minutes 
 
14 A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 
 before the Bericht and the Verhbr were required ; the rest of 
 the pupils were given the section on the Surface of South 
 America which they reviewed about six to seven minutes 
 before the Verhbr or the Bericht was required. The time for 
 the Bericht was about fifteen minutes and that for the Verhbr 
 about twenty minutes. The pupils of both grade 7-1, and those 
 of grades 7-2, 8-1, and 8-2 in the second experiment answered 
 the Verhbr first and then gave the Bericht; and those of 7-2, 
 8-1 and 8-2 of the first experiment gave the Bericht first and 
 then replied to the Verhbr. In the experiment when the 
 Verhbr was given first, care was taken to erase the questions 
 entirely from the blackboard before the Bericht was demanded, 
 and also to make clear to the pupils that they should report 
 again all that they knew on the subject in the Verhbr. 
 
 The suggestive questions were formulated according to Lip- 
 mann's advice, that is, different forms of the suggestive 
 questions were asked on the same subject-matter but to the 
 different observers so that the suggestiveness of the questions 
 might be compared. The pupils of grade 8-1 in the second 
 experiment were not asked suggestive questions but the 
 normal questions. During the experiment every precaution 
 was taken not to give any suggestion whatever. 
 
 NUMERICAL CALCULATION OF DATA 
 
 The following device for estimating our data was adopted, 
 after various methods had been tried, as giving the fairest 
 treatment : 
 
 A. In regard to the data on the Guianas. 
 
 1. A complete answer to each question was credited as one 
 point. 
 
 2. An answer that gave one datum where a question 
 demanded two data was counted as half a unit. 
 
 3. Answers to some of the questions (such as n, 12, and 
 14. See Appendix.) were not demanded in full. If a pupil 
 gave two names of the products or goods for exportation or 
 importation, he was credited one point, if he gave only one 
 name, he was credited half a point. 
 
 These regulations were followed in estimating the data in 
 the corresponding Bericht. 
 
 B. As to the data regarding the Surface of South America. 
 
 1. A fact involved in each question was counted as one 
 unit. 
 
 2. In the corresponding Bericht, the same rule was applied, 
 but here a few exceptions were made. 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 14! 
 
 a. If a pupil reported : " The vast forests in the Amazon 
 river basin are called Selvas," he was awarded two points, 
 since this report contained two facts corresponding to two 
 questions in the Verhdr; but if a pupil reported : " The vast 
 forests in South America are called Selvas," he received only 
 one point, as it gave only one fact. 
 
 b. If a pupil reported : " The Andes highland lies along 
 the west coast of South America, he was credited with two 
 points, though this answer, strictly speaking, is not complete, 
 since it is important to know that the Andes is the primary or 
 greatest highland. 
 
 c. If a pupil stated : " There are three plains called 
 pampas, llanos, and selvas," he was credited one point, since 
 some pupils thought that selvas meant a grassy plain in the 
 south, while pampas meant a forest in the Amazon basin, etc. 
 
 As a whole these were the only difficulties, and so few in 
 number that any alteration in the crediting caused but a small 
 fraction of change in the percentage. The question naturally 
 arises : Does not the pupil make any statements in the 
 Bericht in addition to those contained in the sections employed 
 for the experiment ? To my surprise only five such statements 
 intruded into the spontaneous reports: two pupils added 
 " Plata river ; " another two " Orinoco river " and one 
 " Guiana highland." These five points were credited, if the 
 statement was clear. 
 
 RESULTS 
 
 Our results are as a whole very similar to those obtained 
 by the other investigators as the following tables show. That 
 is, our results show that the Verhdr gives far greater range 
 of report in quantity, but much worse in quality than the 
 Bericht. It is, however, to be noted here that while this is 
 always true of the general average, it is by no means true of 
 each individual. Five pupils made no errors in either the 
 Verhdr or the Bericht. Tabulating the reports of the normal 
 questions, we have fourteen out of 130 pupils who obtained the 
 full credit for every one of the questions. In both spontaneous 
 reports it is rather surprising to find that ninety-five out of 
 130 pupils committed no errors. 
 
142 
 
 A STUDY OP QUESTIONING 
 RESULTS OF FIRST EXPERIMENT 
 
 
 
 G 
 
 rade 
 
 7-1 
 
 
 
 G] 
 
 rade 
 
 7-2 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 f 
 
 
 r 
 
 f 
 
 
 f 
 
 
 r 
 
 f 
 
 
 
 
 
 r+f 
 
 r+f 
 
 
 
 
 r+f 
 
 r+f 
 
 Bericht 
 
 6.4 
 
 14 
 
 
 07. 7 
 
 2 . ? 
 
 5.8 
 
 7 C 
 
 
 O4. 3 
 
 57 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Verhor 
 
 18 * 
 
 41 
 
 i 6 
 
 81 6 
 
 18 4. 
 
 18 7 
 
 42 
 
 T r 
 
 8l 7 
 
 18 7 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 " '0 
 
 
 x O 
 
 OA . ^ 
 
 10. ] 
 
 Normal q. . . 
 
 12.4 
 
 2.4 
 
 I .2 
 
 83.8 
 
 16.2 
 
 12.5 
 
 2 -3 
 
 I .2 
 
 84.4 
 
 I 5 .6 
 
 Sugg, q 
 
 5-9 
 
 1.76 
 
 34 
 
 77- 
 
 23- 
 
 5.6 
 
 2 . I 
 
 3 
 
 72.7 
 
 2 7-3 
 
 
 
 G 
 
 rade 
 
 8-1 
 
 
 
 G] 
 
 rade 
 
 3-2 
 
 
 
 
 f 
 
 
 r 
 
 f 
 
 
 f 
 
 
 r 
 
 f 
 
 
 
 
 
 r+f 
 
 r+f 
 
 
 
 
 r+f 
 
 r+f 
 
 Bericht .... 
 
 r 2 
 
 . 1$ 
 
 
 Q2 7 
 
 6 * 
 
 e 8 
 
 2 
 
 
 96 6 
 
 34 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Verhor 
 
 I7.Q 
 
 (T . 
 
 i . i 
 
 78.1 
 
 21 . O 
 
 13.4 
 
 2 . I 
 
 i . ^ 
 
 86 4 
 
 13 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Normal q. . . 
 
 I2. 3 
 
 2.9 
 
 .8 
 
 81. 
 
 IQ. 
 
 8.5 
 
 I . I 
 
 1.4 
 
 88.5 
 
 "5 
 
 Sugg, q 
 
 5-6 
 
 2.15 
 
 25 
 
 72.2 
 
 2 7 .8 
 
 4.94 
 
 I . 
 
 .06 
 
 83.1 
 
 16.9 
 
 In the above table, with grade 7-1, and in the following table on the 
 
 next page with all grades the Verhdr was given first and then the 
 
 Bericht, while with all the rest the Bericht was given first and the 
 Verhor followed. 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 RESULTS OF SECOND EXPERIMENT 
 
 
 Grade 7-1 
 
 Grade 7-2 
 
 r 
 
 f 
 
 u 
 
 r 
 
 f 
 
 r 
 
 f 
 
 u 
 
 r 
 
 f 
 
 r+f 
 
 r+f 
 
 r+f 
 
 r+f 
 
 Verh5r 
 
 19. 
 
 4.1 
 
 9 
 
 82.2 
 
 17.8 
 
 19.8 
 
 3-65 
 
 55 
 
 84.4 
 
 15.6 
 
 Bericht. . . . 
 
 7-7 
 
 54 
 
 
 93-4 
 
 6.6 
 
 8.1 
 
 .6 
 
 
 93 - 1 
 
 6.9 
 
 Normal q . . 
 
 13 .18 
 
 2.36 
 
 .46 
 
 84.8 
 
 15.2 
 
 13.8 
 
 1.85 
 
 35 
 
 88.1 
 
 11.9 
 
 Sugg. q. . . . 
 
 6.2 
 
 i-S 
 
 3 
 
 80.5 
 
 19-5 
 
 5-9 
 
 1.8 
 
 3 
 
 76.6 
 
 23-4 
 
 
 Grade 8-1 
 
 Grade 8-2 
 
 r 
 
 f 
 
 u 
 
 r 
 
 f 
 
 r 
 
 f 
 
 u 
 
 r 
 
 f 
 
 r+f 
 
 r+f 
 
 r+f 
 
 r+f 
 
 Verh6r 
 
 18.3 
 
 4.1 
 
 1.6 
 
 81.7 
 
 18.3 
 
 13*05 
 
 3- 1 
 
 1.85 
 
 80.8 
 
 19.2 
 
 Bericht 
 
 6. 
 
 4 
 
 
 93-7 
 
 6-3 
 
 S-i 
 
 . i 
 
 
 98. 
 
 2. 
 
 Normal q. . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 9.1 
 
 !-55 
 
 J -35 
 
 85-4 
 
 I 4 .6 
 
 Sugg. q.... 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 4-3 
 
 J -5 
 
 .2 
 
 74.1 
 
 2 5-9 
 
 I. Relation between the Bericht given first and the suc- 
 ceeding Verhbr. A certain number of the statements given 
 in the Bericht were altered rightly or wrongly in the succeeding 
 Verhbr as follows: 
 
 CORRECTIONS 
 
 Pupils 
 
 r tof 
 
 r to u 
 
 f tof 
 
 f to r 
 
 f to u 
 
 72 (7 pupils). . 
 
 7 
 
 -i 
 
 7 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 8i (n pupils) 
 
 16 
 
 A 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 82 (6 pupils) 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Total . . 
 
 26 
 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 In other words, thirty-nine correct statements out of the 
 total 402.5 given by the sixty-six pupils in their Bericht were 
 changed wrongly in the succeeding Verhbr by twenty-four 
 
144 A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 
 pupils. For instance, in the Bericht, two pupils reported that 
 the Andes highland lies along the western coast of South 
 America, but in the Verhor they answered question 7, " the 
 Brazilian highland." Another boy and girl reported that the 
 Amazon river flows from the Andes highland and is the 
 largest in the world, but they answered question 15, '* from the 
 Brazilian highland." Some pupils reported in the Bericht, 
 " the coast of South America is not as irregular as that of 
 North America," but they answered question 3, b, with " yes, 
 it is as irregular as that of North America." Two girls of 
 grade 8-2 reported that the British and Dutch planters plant 
 coffee and cocoa in place of the sugar-cane because the price 
 of cane-sugar has declined, but they failed to answer question 5. 
 On the other hand, six of the total 18.5 false statements in the 
 Bericht remained false in the Verhor; the other six of the 18.5 
 false statements were corrected by the questions in the Verhor; 
 while the other two were changed to the answers : " I don't 
 know." Thus we may justly infer that the Verhor is more 
 likely to make the right statements of the Bericht false than 
 to change the wrong statements to right ones. 
 
 The question naturally arises here: Why should questions 
 as a whole have such an influence even upon what was given 
 correctly in the Bericht? The reason which we shall discuss 
 later on may be stated here briefly as follows : The pupils are 
 now questioned after they have given what they thought true 
 and correct, and this inquiry draws their attention to the idea 
 so intensely that it rouses in their minds an element of doubt 
 and causes them to become more suggestible. 
 
 II. Relation between the Verhor given -first and the Bericht 
 following. To determine this has never been undertaken by 
 any of the investigators. It becomes thus one of the chief 
 points of interest in our experiments. We said as a result of 
 the experiments hitherto performed that the questions influence 
 our memory so much that any distortion right or wrong may 
 not be eiadicated later. From this it might be supposed that 
 after a given lesson had been studied for a certain period of 
 time, if questions be asked that cover each fact, one should be 
 able to give a far better report in the succeeding Bericht on 
 the same subject-matter than if asked to give a Bericht 
 immediately after the study and before the detailed questions. 
 Indeed the questions preceding the Bericht analyze the whole 
 subject matter clearly into points and connect them with the 
 questions so that they serve as a sort of resume and may thus 
 facilitate the succeeding Bericht. And to a certain extent this 
 hypothesis is true, but not so completely as might naturally be 
 expected. If we compare the results from grades 7-1 and 7-2 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 14$ 
 
 in the first experiment, which are most justly comparable, 
 because the pupils were taught by the same teacher under the 
 same conditions, we see only a slight difference ; again the 
 results from grade 8-1 in the second experiment, where no 
 suggestive questions were used, and 8-1 in the first experiment, 
 and from 8-2 in both experiments show merely slight better- 
 ment, although 7-1 and 7-2 of the second experiment show 
 rather better work than any other. 
 
 Furthermore, the Bericht that followed the Verhor revealed 
 a most interesting phenomenon: nine correct statements out 
 of the total 478 given in the Bericht by the pupils of grades 
 7-1, 7-2, 8-1 and 8-2, were not answered by them, when 
 questioned in the preceding Verhor; forty-five correct state- 
 ments of the 478 were the correction of what was stated 
 falsely in the previous Verhor; sixteen false statements of the 
 478 were the remainders of what was already given falsely 
 in the Verhor; and three false statements of the 478 were the 
 falsification of what was given rightly in the Verhor. For 
 example : one girl answered, " no, it does not," to question 16, 
 b, but in the succeeding Bericht she said that the surface of 
 South America resembles that of North America. One boy 
 answered the question 22 (what are the vast forests in Brazil 
 called? Answer, selvas), with "They are called pampas," 
 but in the following Bericht said : " The vast forests of Brazil 
 in the Amazon basin are called Selvas." 
 
 These facts show clearly: that the influence of the Verhor 
 upon the succeeding Bericht is rather slight, that the mental 
 activity of the children in the Bericht differs from that in the 
 Verhor where they are made abnormal and passive, being 
 compelled by the external influence of the questions, while in 
 the Bericht they are self-dependent, being free from any exter- 
 nal compulsion ; or in other words, we may say that the mental 
 attitude of the pupils towards the Verhor is different from 
 that towards the Bericht. 
 
 In regard to the so-called sequence or place of the Bericht 
 and the Verhor, we are made a little skeptical about the state- 
 ment that the Verhor should be subordinate to the Bericht as a 
 sort of supplement. It is certainly better to ask the Bericht first 
 and then give the Verhor on those points not stated in the Ber- 
 icht so that any distortion of what was given in the Bericht may 
 be avoided in the Verhor; but if our inference is correct, that is, 
 if mental activity in the Bericht has a peculiar tendency to 
 correct what was given falsely in the Verhor, then is it not also 
 useful to demand a second Bericht after the Verhor? In 
 school practice, and even in the court where we do not know 
 
146 A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 
 anything about the event, we may ask questions first and then 
 demand the Bericht just as well as to give the Bericht first and 
 then the Verhor, so long as there is no hypothetical, incomplete 
 disjunctive and sequential question in the series of the given 
 questions. The writer does not disregard the suggestive influ- 
 ence of questions by any means, but wishes to emphasize the 
 significance of the mental attitude in the Bericht. 
 
 In order to avoid repetition, the rest of our results will be 
 given in connection with the discussion of the other aspects of 
 our problem. 
 
 DIFFERENCE OF PSYCHIC ACTIVITIES IN THE BERICHT AND 
 THE VERHOR 
 
 Why is the Bericht always more trustworthy than the 
 Verhor? Why is the range of the Bericht always far smaller 
 than that of the Verhor? 
 
 The psychic after-effects of the impressions received in the 
 observation are of various degrees of intensity, vividness and 
 clearness. The things observed with interest and attention 
 are apt to be most firmly fixed and thus be kept most clear, 
 while those perceived inattentively or unconsciously leave 
 behind only insignificant traces or none at all. (58. p. 329.) 
 Intense, vivid and clear images or ideas lie always nearest to 
 the threshold of consciousness waiting, so to speak, for the 
 imperative impulse for self-expression to shake off the yoke 
 of inhibition. Such ideas take precedence in the Bericht. In 
 addition to these, the observers with more or less effort raise 
 above the threshold many ideas of somewhat vague poten- 
 tiality which have lost their clearness and obtrusive character 
 in comparison with those of the first group, although still 
 possessing sufficient persistence to come within the sphere of 
 voluntary recollection (58). Hence the Bericht is not 
 passive, but active in the highest degree. It is a more or less 
 powerful and independent conscious selection of the most vivid 
 and clear ideas in memory to which is attached the feeling 
 of the greatest certainty and, above all, of spontaneity. 
 Because of this will-activity with a feeling of spontaneity, any 
 vague ambiguous and uncertain ideas are rejected. Conse- 
 quently the Bericht is good in quality though unfortunately 
 its range is small. This psychic activity in the Bericht can be 
 further verified by the results of experimentation. Roden- 
 waldt gave his observers an opportunity to look at the picture 
 again in order that their self-correction might be made in both 
 the Bericht and the Verhor. This showed that the correction 
 of the Bericht was so small, as to amount only to one-seventh 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 147 
 
 of the total false statements in the Bericht, while two-fifths of 
 the false statements in the Verhor were corrected. This clearly 
 shows that the confidence in the Bericht was so great that there 
 was no thought of correction. (58. pp. 325-326.) 
 
 It is quite different with the Verhor. The activity here is 
 passive or reactive in a sense of being constrained from 
 without, though it is quite necessary and helpful for recall 
 of what the spontaneous report fails to give. The effect of 
 a question or theme for recollection is twofold (24) : it offers a 
 key to open the store-house of the latent ideas which otherwise 
 may remain continuously submerged, or it may draw the 
 observer's attention to a gap in his knowledge so that he 
 attempts to fill it with an answer of some sort. And this is 
 done quite often from an irresistible impulse, since every 
 question, even the most indifferent, the most cautious and the 
 most unsuggestive, as appears in the experiments, is more than 
 a mere question. It is a command for a recollection and the 
 production of a certain answer (58. p. 330). This double 
 effect of a question in suggesting to an observer a true or false 
 answer is clearly seen in all the results mentioned. So great 
 is the wish to give a certain answer, that the critical power is 
 weakened. Hence the increase in quantity and the deteriora- 
 tion in quality in the report. The psychological conditions of 
 the false answers are very different and depend on many 
 factors which will be discussed later. 
 
 Obviously there are disadvantages in both the Bericht and 
 the Verhor. Testing the mental state of a child by either 
 would be a defective method. As Stern (58) and Wreschner 
 (70) state, the spontaneous report allows very great latitude 
 in individual voluntary activity and this causes some observers 
 to notice very few, and others very many details, thus making 
 the comparison of the different observers a particularly difficult 
 problem. Moreover, we can not state justly whether a failure 
 in regard to a certain fact or point in the Bericht is due to 
 a lack of retention or failure in the power of immediate recall. 
 Hence neither the Bericht nor the Verhor taken separately give 
 the real mental status of the observer. They must go hand in 
 hand. We must remember what we have already shown that 
 to neglect to train the power in the Bericht, and to rely on the 
 Verhor alone is to make children passive and halting in their 
 self-expression and independent mental activity. 
 
 The following examples taken from the answers given by 
 our observers show the great individual variations among 
 pupils. Some can do good work respectively in both the 
 
148 A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 
 Bericht and the Verhbr, while most of the observers fail in the 
 Bericht, not only when given before but also after the Verhbr, 
 in spite of the fact that they can do fairly good work in the 
 Verhbr. One boy who could answer in the following Verhbr 
 twenty-three questions correctly out of twenty-four, gave his 
 Bericht: 
 
 " South America is mountainous in the northern, eastern and south- 
 ern part it is lowlands in the central part and hilly in the western 
 part. ( 12-year-old.)" 
 
 A fifteen-year-old boy gave this Bericht, but answered 
 nineteen out of twenty-four questions in the Verhbr following. 
 
 " South America has a narrow surface center a level plain on the 
 north and south and a mountain highland on the east and west with 
 an irregular coastline." 
 
 On the other hand, a fifteen-year-old boy answered only 
 eight out of seventeen questions, though he had given the 
 following excellent Bericht. 
 
 "The three Guianas (British, Dutch and French) are interested in 
 the production of cane-sugar and its by-products, molasses and rum. 
 Owing to the decline in the price of sugar-cane, the British planters 
 have replaced it by coffee and cocoa. The British supply one half 
 of the fuel and coal used, and the United States one fourth. A 
 large amount of rubber is produced in the Guianas, and an important 
 amount of gold. Most of the cultivation is done on a narrow strip 
 of land near the coast, where most of the people live. Paramimbo 
 is the important trade center at Dutch Guiana, and trade of French 
 Guiana." 
 
 A thirteen-year-old girl had answered correctly twenty out 
 of twenty-four questions, but gave a poor Bericht after the 
 Verhbr, viz. 
 
 " South America is very mountanous, it has a higher highland on 
 the west and a lesser highland on the east and a great plain between." 
 
 A twelve-year-old boy had answered only fourteen out of 
 twenty-four questions, but gave a fine Bericht after the 
 Verhbr, viz. 
 
 " South America resembles North America in shape, etc. The 
 northern part is wide but tapers towards the south. There are great 
 mountains on the west and smaller highland on the east. The Andes 
 highland on the west is long and narrow; and higher than the rocky 
 mountains of North America. The highland of Brazil on the eastern 
 part is wide but not nearly as high as the Andes. There is a great 
 plain between these two highlands called the central part. It is 
 divided into three sections. The central part along the Amazon 
 river is called selvas meaning forests. The northern part is called 
 llanos meaning grassy plains, the southern part called pampas also 
 means grassy plains." 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 149 
 
 THE NATURE OF THE ANSWER DEPENDS ON THE FORM OF THE 
 
 QUESTION 
 
 There are various forms of suggestive questions, though not 
 always perceived as such. Stern says that hardly any ideal 
 question is an entirely unsuggestive question. (58. p. 339.) 
 Hence it is impossible to avoid suggestion in the T/erhor. (64.) 
 Against the above statement of Stern, Miss Borst (9. p. 78) 
 argues as follows : " I can not agree with him. According 
 to my opinion, there is suggestion only when we put to an 
 observer a question which refers itself to an object which was 
 not present in the picture or the like employed for the experi- 
 ment, and by means of which a false idea will be smuggled 
 into the observer's mind. All other questions, however, which 
 refer themselves to a really presented thing, build only a 
 support for recollection, and that is exactly what is aimed at 
 by the Verhor" (9. p. 78.) Thus she means by a suggestive 
 question one which gives a false suggestion, but, as we shall 
 see later, we know that a question may suggest a right answer. 
 Moreover, what does her phrase " a support for recollection " 
 mean? Does it not mean a narrowing or limitation of our 
 conscious activity, leading or inducing the observer to focus 
 his attention on a certain idea or ideas? When the mind of 
 the observer becomes more and more a blank as the result of 
 voluntary inhibition of ideas or associations, he is more apt to 
 yield to suggestion. This is because the power of suggestion 
 often consists in the fact that the mind is centered on only 
 one or two ideas ; all distractions are carefully excluded, and 
 much greater power is therefore manifested along the 
 restricted line than when the mind is attending to many stimuli 
 simultaneously or in rapid succession. Inhibition of all ideas 
 but one greatly intensifies the one. 
 
 Along this special train of thought we are prone to be 
 swept by suggestion. Does there not then in the function of 
 support for recollection lie a suggestive influence which she 
 seems to ignore ? It is a matter of course that every question 
 is not suggestion, but there is suggestion in every question. 
 She further says : " One observer, for instance, forgot to 
 name an apron in his enumeration of the articles of clothing, 
 and I put to him the question, whether the child had on an 
 apron or not? Here we have certainly nothing to do with a 
 suggestive question, for there is no ground at all which to 
 the observer would suggest a positive answer rather than a 
 negative one." (9. p. 78.) But if the observer failed to 
 notice the apron, as Breukink (n) found, he might get 
 a suggestion from such a question. We can not, however, 
 agree with Stern (64) when he says that it is absurd 
 
150 A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 
 to ask, for instance, about the color of a hat, when the 
 observer has not named it in his enumeration of articles of 
 clothing. He maintains that by this question suggestion will 
 be made ; for when the observer omits the naming of the hat, 
 it shows that he had no recollection of its existence. Miss 
 Borst remarks, I do not understand this objection : " Tht 
 investigations of memory teach us (and Stern himself ha* 
 emphasized this) that it can not be said that a recollection has 
 vanished from the memory. Even when it does not occur 
 spontaneously ; elements of recollection can remain latent in 
 memory. The purpose of the Verhbr is precisely to revive 
 these elements of recollection from their latency." (9. p. 79.) 
 All the other investigations as well as our own have shown 
 that the observers have failed to mention certain things, yet 
 answer questions in regard to them with certainty. It is a 
 question whether or not such an answer is suggested or a real 
 memory. Probably both factors co-operate in such a case. 
 A question as a whole has not a suggestive influence when the 
 memory is clear, vivid and strong, and accompanied by a 
 feeling of certainty. On the contrary, every question is apt to 
 be suggestive when the memory is vague, obscure and 
 uncertain. 
 
 The suggestiveness of the questions may be graded artifici- 
 ally according to the logically-grammatical form of the 
 questions. 
 
 Attention was drawn to this problem first by Binet (6. pp. 
 297 ff), but the more elaborate gradation was left to Stern 
 (58. pp. 338-345) and later taken up by Lipmann. Stern 
 grades the suggestiveness of the questions beginning 
 with the least suggestive as follows: (i) The determining 
 question (Bestimmungsfrage), or the question introduced with 
 interrogative-pronoun or adverb: which, who, where, why, 
 etc ; (2) the complete disjunctive question or the " yes or no " 
 question; (3) the incomplete disjunctive question or the 
 " either-or " question; (4) the expectant (leading) question 
 or the " yes " question or " no " question; (5) the hypothetical 
 and (6) the sequential question (Folgefrage). Lipmann (33. 
 pp. 58-60) used practically the same distinctions. Each of 
 these forms of the questions has its own peculiar psychological 
 significance or function. We shall follow the analysis of 
 Stern. 
 
 The determining question offers a wide field of ideas within 
 which an observer can exercise his own power of free choice. 
 Hence he can be self-assertive in his answer; for instance: 
 what is A? Describe B? has no limitation for the field of 
 ideation about A or B. Such a question simply appeals to the 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 151 
 
 memory without suggestion. Thus it is considered as the 
 most indifferent and harmless question. 
 
 The complete disjunctive question, or the "yes or no" 
 question, requires the observer to decide between the two 
 ideas offered by the question, or between ' yes ' and ' no/ one of 
 which is always false. For example: Was that A or not? 
 Here the idea A is presented to be selected or negated from 
 the vast field of other ideas, and apparently there is no limita- 
 tion for the answer. But when we introspect, we perceive the 
 idea A clearly and distinctly with vague ideas coming and 
 going in our conscious field, as its back-ground. Consequently 
 the idea A has an affirmative, while the rest have a negative 
 tone. The only chance is either to affirm or negate A. This 
 limitation in the selection of the answer renders the suggestion 
 more influential than the preceding question. 
 
 According to both Stern and Lipmann, the tendency to 
 answer " yes " is stronger than that to answer " no," but 
 Borst takes an opposite view. This may be due either to the 
 special influence of her oral questioning or to difference of 
 suggestibility of the observers, as it is found by Goddard (23. 
 p. 4) that a certain type of child will always answer the last 
 of two alternatives. Our experiment also shows that a certain 
 child answers always with " yes," and another always with 
 " no," no matter whether the question is a " yes or no " ques- 
 tion or expectant question, but the tendency to answer " yes " 
 is far stronger. 
 
 Lipmann says (33. p. 58) that the complete disjunctive 
 question, for instance : It is A or B ? is less suggestive than the 
 " yes or no " question, e. g., Is it A ? This is to be contrary 
 to the result of writer's own introspection. The form, " Is it 
 A or B ? " suggests dual or rival determination, presupposing 
 belief in a sphere of existence in which either supposition or 
 both may have confirmation according to the meaning. Though 
 there is surely suspense as to which of the possible assertions 
 is to be accepted, but the certainty of the issue to be A or B 
 or both is expressed, and consequently the field of ideation is 
 exhausted by A and B (15. p. 347). On the other hand, 
 " yes or no " question, e. g., " Is it A or not? *' or " Is it A? " 
 are of an indefinite alternative over against the definite 
 alternation of the complete disjunctive question, because " it 
 may be A," or it may be something else. Of course it may 
 happen to be exclusive, if " it is A," but never exhaustive in 
 its suggestive influence like the complete disjunctive question 
 proper. 
 
 There are two kinds of " yes or no " question which are 
 ignored by the great majority of questioners. A question, 
 
152 
 
 A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 
 " Is it A ? " is called a true " yes or no " question, when the 
 answer A is true ; and it is called a false " yes or no " question, 
 if the answer A is false. The following table shows the 
 difference of suggestiveness of each form of question for 
 117 pupils in our experiments. 
 
 
 
 
 
 r 
 
 f 
 
 
 r 
 
 f 
 
 u 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 r+f 
 
 r+f 
 
 True yes-no-q 
 
 
 2 ^ 
 
 1 1 
 
 8? A. 
 
 12 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 False yes-no-q 
 
 1 10 
 
 8c 
 
 8 
 
 *8 3 
 
 4. 1 7 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Hence it appears that the true " yes or no " question pro- 
 duces far more right answers in every case than the false one, 
 while the latter without exception produces more false 
 answers than the former. Moreover seven of 117 pupils 
 answered with " yes, so and so," and three with " no, so and 
 so " to every " yes or no " question whether or not its content 
 was true or false. From these results it appears that our 
 school children are not only suggestible but also are mechanized 
 to react to the form of the question instead of to its content. 
 
 The expectant question (leading question), is more sug- 
 gestive than the former according to Stern and Lipmann, 
 since the form of the question in itself represents the ques- 
 tioner's expectation and leads the observer to accept it uncon- 
 sciously. Take, for example, a question : " Was it not A ? " 
 and analyze it into the two parts : "It was A" and "was it not ?" 
 The first part affirms that it was A, while the second shows a 
 clearly expressed expectation. The mind has a tendency to 
 accept as true anything that enters it. A belief is urged from 
 the start by the words " was not." The suggested idea must, 
 thus, dominate, even when the observer has a clear knowledge 
 of it, as the possibility of doubt is covered by the probability 
 of the expectation. The first given interpretation persists and 
 is taken as true even without being consciously regarded 
 as true or false. This is frequently true when his knowledge 
 is vague, and his belief in the questioner is strong. The 
 expectant question is, according to Lipmann and also in the 
 opinion of the writer, weaker than the incomplete disjunctive 
 question, for the former causes the observer to appeal to his 
 memory, feeling of course the influence of the insinuation 
 which results from the question, and in some cases the word 
 ' not ' serves as a warning, while it is not the same with the 
 incomplete disjunctive question which offers two ideas, neither 
 of which is true, presupposing that one of them is true. 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 153 
 
 Lipmann differentiates the expectant question as false and 
 true according to its meaning. For example : Is it not A ? is 
 true if asked, when the answer A is right, and it is false, 
 when the answer A is false. His result shows (33. pp. 
 69-70) : " the false answers were diminished about 24% by the 
 right expectant questions, and the right answers were 
 diminished about iS% by the false expectant question in rela- 
 tion to the total statements. The right answers were increased 
 about 12% by the true expectant question and the false 
 answers about 2% by the false one, in relation to the total 
 statements. In both cases the suggestive formulation caused 
 an increase of the uncertain answers ; with the true expectant 
 question about 13%, and with the false about 17%'. Thus 
 he concludes that the true expectant question has a stronger 
 influence than the false, and that the former brings out more 
 right and fewer false answers than the latter. (33. pp. 54, 
 60, 61.) 
 
 Our experiments with 117 pupils confirm Lipmann's results. 
 The expectant questions gave: r=i37, f 27, u = i, that 
 is, the true statements amounted to 83.7% and the false ones 
 to 16.3%, while with the false expectant questions, r 98, 
 f = 55, u = 8, that is, 64% and 36% for r and f respectively. 
 
 Furthermore twelve of 117 pupils in both experiments 
 answered every expectant question, whether true or false, with 
 " yes, it is so," and three with " no, so and so." Here again, 
 the children are habituated to react to the form of questions, 
 and not to their content. It is of a vital significance for a 
 teacher to recognize this different function of the true and 
 false questions, as each gives such a different result clearly 
 shown by our table. 
 
 The incomplete disjunctive question is stronger in its sug- 
 gestive influence than the preceding ones, since here neither 
 of the answers can be right. As, in case of the complete dis- 
 junctive question, the possibility of an answer is not only 
 logically exhausted, but the probability of a wrong answer is 
 very great; for to answer independently of the two alterna- 
 tives offered requires a mental self-reliance, of which most of 
 us are not capable. This type of the question too can be 
 divided into two forms : true and false, according to its content. 
 
 The hypothetical question is in its form exactly the same 
 as that of the determining question, for instance : " what 
 is the color of A?," and must be valuated unsuggestive from 
 the stand-point of the form. But suppose that the observer 
 until questioned did not know of the existence of A, what will 
 be suggested? He will surely reason: The question asks 
 now after the color of A, then there must have been A (58. 
 
154 A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 
 pp. 342-343). He will thus come to silently accept the 
 intentional suggestion of the questioner. If A is once accepted, 
 it is easy to attach attributes to it. Even when the observer 
 does not or can not attach a color to A, if, for instance, he 
 answers, " I do not know its color," he is still a victim of 
 the suggestion, for he tacitly admits the existence of A in the 
 form of his reply. The hypothetical question also can be 
 divided into true and false forms according to its content. 
 
 (33- P- 59-) 
 
 The sequential question makes use of an implication: 
 One who says A, must also say B. (58. p. 343.) For 
 instance : If a question, " was not A there? " (when in reality 
 it was not there) is accepted by the observer, then this 
 acceptance means that he will admit the existence of the color, 
 size, etc., of the A, as it is natural to infer that the A should 
 have been colored, etc. The sequential question is used when 
 a hypothetical or the like question is accepted. 
 
 Thus we can make a graded series according to the degree 
 of suggestiveness contained in the form and to some extent 
 the content of the questions. However, the suggestive influ- 
 ence of each form of the above questions is not in its numerical 
 percentage proportional to the scale. To answer a hypo- 
 thetical and sequential question, a part or the whole of an 
 object or a thing must be invented, and this invention needs 
 a great mental effort, or a struggle against the present mental 
 state. This is probably the reason why these questions result 
 often in a small percentage of errors. Again that the effec- 
 tiveness of the suggestive questions declines strongly with 
 increasing age, while the frequency of the erroneous answers 
 to the normal questions is fairly independent of age, shows 
 that the nearer a question is to the normal, the less suggestive 
 it is. 
 
 It is interesting to note that the observer passes through 
 various stages of mental resistance against the suggestive 
 influence of questions. According to Binet's observation, the 
 first instance which follows the reading of the question is 
 a moment of scepticism. This is shown by a murmur, " But 
 I don't know," or by the gestures of ennui or negation, or 
 mimic expressions, etc. Some translate this state of scepticism 
 by the written answer, " no," which they finally efface ; some 
 say " no, it was not so." This state of an initial resistance 
 persists indefinitely with some observers. (6. p. 303.) The 
 second phase is that of half yielding to the suggestion. The 
 observer commences to write his answer, but he is arrested by 
 a decisive word or words. Finally, a third phase is that of the 
 execution of the suggestion. Here the observer shows often, 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 155 
 
 at the moment when he writes his answer, a flushing of the 
 face, as if he had a sentiment of shame. On the other hand, 
 there is sometimes a resistance which is first at a maximum 
 and then terminates with a disbelief in suggestion. (6. 
 
 P- 304.) 
 
 The same phenomena have been observed very distinctly by 
 the writer in his own experiments. It is rather surprising to 
 find that thirty-two cases of 117 pupils in both experiments 
 erased their answers to the " yes or no " questions as well 
 as to the expectant questions and corrected rightly or wrongly 
 in the following ratio, that is, twenty-two cases rightly, and 
 ten wrongly. 
 
 For example, some pupils answered, " Yes, it is as irregular 
 as that of North America" to the question 3 (b) (Is the 
 coast of South America as irregular as that of North 
 America?), but erased this answer and wrote " No, it is not." 
 Others wrote first, " Yes, it means level land," to the question 
 21 (b) (Does 'llanos' mean level land?), but corrected it to 
 11 no, it means highland," erasing the first answer. Besides 
 these thirty-two cases of correction, there were four special 
 cases where two pupils wrote " no " as an answer, but erased 
 it, and then wrote " no " again, while the two others did the 
 same with " yes." 
 
 A comparison of the suggestive influence of each form 
 of the questions by means of the experimental results already 
 obtained follows. 
 
 That the " yes or no " question is more suggestive than the 
 determining question has been shown experimentally by 
 Binet (6. p. 313), Chomjakov (14), Lipmann (33) and 
 others. Our investigation with 13 pupils showed with the 
 normal questions (3, 9, 16, 19, and 24 of 2nd series, appendix), 
 true answers amounted to 71.9% ; false ones to 21.9%, and 
 uncertain ones to 6.2%>; with the corresponding true "yes or 
 no" questions with 42 pupils, 90.4%, 9.6% and zero % 
 respectively ; and with the corresponding false " yes or no " 
 questions, 54.7%', 41.5%, and 3.8% respectively. 
 
 The results of Stern, Rodenwaldt, Oppenheim, and others 
 show that the leading (expectant) is more suggestive than the 
 determining question. But in all these cases, the leading as 
 well as the normal questions were applied to the different 
 objects, so that we may not be justified in depending upon 
 their results. The results of Chomjakov and Lipmann can 
 justly be relied upon, for they applied both kind of questions 
 to the same objects, though as a matter of course using them 
 on the different observers. Chomjakov (14) showed three 
 groups of each fifty students a sheet of paper which was 
 
156 A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 
 spotted with red and violet color. The first group was asked : 
 " How many red and how many violet spots have you 
 noticed ? " The second was asked : " Have you not noticed 
 red spots between the numerous violet ones here and there, 
 and how many were there?" The third: " Have you not 
 noticed between the numerous red spots here and there, also 
 violet spots, and how many ? " The results were : The first 
 group answered on an average with eleven red and eight 
 violet ; the second with fifteen violet and four red ; the third 
 with four violet and fifteen red. 
 
 Our results agree to some extent with Lipmann's (33. 
 PP- 53~4 68-9). They show clearly that the true leading 
 questions suggest the right answers more strongly than the 
 false leading questions do the false answers when compared 
 with the non suggestive questions corresponding to both. 
 
 We obtained in the experiments with the normal questions 
 (8.13 and 21 of 2nd series, appendix) with 13 pupils: true 
 answers = 71.8%, false = 20.5%, and uncertain = 7.796 ; with 
 the corresponding true expectant questions on the 42 pupils, 
 r = 94%, f = 6%, and zero for u; with the corresponding 
 false expectant questions, 66.7%, 20% and 13.3% respectively. 
 
 From all these experimental results, it is seen that the 
 expectation aroused by means of the phrase, " Was it not," 
 or words like " numerous," " truly," " perhaps," " honestly," 
 etc., or some special instruction or silent manipulation as 
 in the experiments of Lobsien (38), Kosog (29, 30), Seashore 
 (56. pp. 30-31), Scott (55), Plecher (47), and others, 
 produces a high percentage of suggestibility. And that the 
 false leading questions do not act more suggestively than the 
 false " yes-or-no " questions, provided that the former are 
 differentiated from the latter only by the word " not," is deter- 
 mined by both Lipmann (33. p. 70) and Rodenwaldt (50). 
 In our own experiments the false " yes-or-no " questions 
 brought out more false answers than the false leading ones. 
 This is perhaps due to the fact, as Rodenwaldt rightly states, 
 that " the intelligent observers easily discover that they will be 
 led into a trap by the word ' not ' " and become cautious, while 
 they more easily fall into a trap with the false " yes-or-no " 
 questions where the word ' not ' is omitted. 
 
 For the suggestive influence of the false hypothetical and the 
 incomplete disjunctive questions the readers are referred to 
 Lipmann's exact work (33. pp. 75 ff), Binet (6), Lobsien 
 (38), and others. 
 
 In summarising, it may be said that the suggestiveness of 
 a question to a great extent depends upon its form and its 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 157 
 
 content ; that a determining question is the least suggestive ; 
 that the true leading as well as the true " yes-or-no " questions 
 are more suggestive than the false ones, the former evoking 
 more right answers and the latter more false ones without 
 exception. 
 
 RELATION BETWEEN THE SUGGESTIVENESS OF A QUESTION AND 
 A QUESTIONER 
 
 It makes a great difference whether a question is presented 
 to a pupil by his fellow-student or by a teacher ; to a witness, 
 by a disinterested person or by a judge. " The presence of 
 persons," says McDougall (40. pp. 98 ff), "whom we regard 
 as our inferiors in the particular situation of the moment 
 evokes the impulse of self-assertion ; towards such persons we 
 are but little or not at all suggestible. But, in the presence 
 of persons who make upon us an impression of power or 
 of superiority of any kind, the impulse of submission is 
 brought into play, and we are thrown into a submissive, 
 receptive attitude towards them." " The personality or 
 impressive character," says Keatinge (26. ch. 5), " can set up 
 in another a state of emotion sufficient to produce an unstable 
 and easily dissociated condition of mind, and thus to inhibit 
 the rise of the development of contrariant systems." Such 
 an authoritative influence is apt to modify the nature of an 
 answer. 
 
 Thus under the influence of an authority or of masterfulness 
 in the questioner, an observer may come to such a logical 
 conclusion as follows : " Why, what else can I think of ? The 
 desired answer must surely be right! The questioner should 
 know it; why, I thought it was this, but he asks about that, 
 am I then mistaken, or is he? No, he should not be so, then 
 I must be." Consequently, if a question is a " yes-question " 
 or a " no-question," he will answer " yes " or " no " without 
 further reflection. If a question is a " yes or no " question, he 
 will react to it with " yes," irrespective of the content of the 
 question, even where according to his knowledge, the answer 
 should be negative. Some pupils, as we have seen, are 
 mechanized to answer " no " to every " yes or no " question, 
 whether its content is true or false, while the majority are 
 habituated to " yes." If, however, a question is an incomplete 
 disjunctive or a false hypothetical question, one will decide 
 in favor of the most probable answer (33. p. 214). 
 
 Next to authority, the facial expression of a questioner 
 has a great influence not only for provoking or inhibiting an 
 
158 A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 
 answer, but also for determining its nature. The following 
 examples are illustrative (68. pp. 84-85) : 
 
 Counsel (taking up the two lower bones of the leg attached and 
 approaching the witness.) " Will you please take these, doctor, and 
 tell the jury whether in life they constituted the bones of a woman's 
 leg or a man's leg? " 
 
 Doctor. " It is difficult to tell, sir." 
 
 Counsel. " What, can't you tell the skeleton of a woman's leg 
 from a man's, doctor?" 
 
 Doctor. " Oh, yes, I should say it was a woman's leg." 
 
 Counsel (smiling and looking pleased). "So in your opinion, 
 doctor, this was a woman's leg?" (It was a woman's leg.) 
 
 Doctor (observing counsel's face and thinking he had made a mis- 
 take). " Oh, I beg your pardon, it is a man's leg, of course. I had 
 not examined it carefully.' 
 
 Counsel (still smiling). "Would you be good enough to tell the 
 jury if it is the right leg or the left leg?" 
 
 Doctor (quietly and hesitatingly). "This is the right leg." 
 
 Counsel (astonished). "What do you say, doctor?" 
 
 Doctor (much confused). "Pardon me, it is the left leg." 
 
 Here it is clear that this doctor's answer was modified 
 wrongly by the counsel's facial expression, which was inter- 
 preted by him as a sign that his answer was wrong. So, too, 
 children's answers in the school-room are often modified by 
 their teacher's facial expression. We cite a few examples 
 from the returns to a questionnaire used not for the purpose 
 of studying questioning but for the study of imitation and 
 suggestion. 
 
 " The teacher in history may ask you a question and generally 
 one that has to be explained. It might take three or four minutes 
 to answer. All the time her face seems to be a perfect blank. She 
 does not look at the person reciting or answering but directs her 
 gaze in another direction. Sometimes I stop and wonder if I am 
 saying the correct thing and then finish the recitation or answer 
 in its midst. If she would only attend to our answers and recitation, 
 we would have much more confidence in our work and do it better." 
 
 The slightest inclination of the head, the dropping of the 
 eyelids, or a certain expression of the face are apt to be read 
 by the shrewd pupil as a sign of the truth or error of his 
 answer, so that he may continue or stop his recitation. (4. 
 pp. 76-77.) It is better not to give any sign whatever while 
 a pupil is answering, except for an encouragement when a 
 pupil is timid or hesitates to express himself. 
 
 To help a child by such signs makes him passive, leads him 
 to depend upon the teacher instead of relying upon his own 
 knowledge. It fosters guessing or leads a bright but unpre- 
 pared pupil to steer through a recitation guided by the 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING I 59 
 
 unsuspecting teacher. This will be more clearly understood 
 through the following examples : 
 
 " I know," says a Normal School girl, " some teachers who ask a 
 question in such a manner and tone that it is easy to know whether 
 the correct answer is ' yes ' or ' no.' Then I have known of another 
 case where by the teacher's facial expressions, gestures, etc., you 
 could tell, if you had only recited the first part of the answer, that 
 it was wrong or right." (Twenty-one cases.) 
 
 Another girl says : " I have always been greatly aided in my reci- 
 tations by carefully watching a teacher's face. In most instances I 
 can tell whether or not I am ' on the right track.' There is some- 
 thing about their facial expression (very slight indeed) that helps 
 me to ' feel my way,' so to speak. This means, of course, was used 
 more during my grammar and high school years." 
 
 As the facial expression, so the tone of a teacher's voice 
 affects the answers of children. In our school rooms we fre- 
 quently notice that the pupils often decline or fail to answer 
 the questions asked, and generally it is inferred that they do 
 not know. But such an interpretation is very often incorrect. 
 For instance, a girl of twelve says : " I knew very well the 
 answer, but the teacher's tone of questioning suggested to me 
 that she does not care much about the answer. So I felt that 
 my answer was not important and consequently I did not 
 answer." (9 cases.) 
 
 Two girls of the seventh grade say : " If a teacher shows that it 
 is fun for her to ask a question, we become stubborn and simply 
 refuse to answer." 
 
 Still another girl says : " If her tone indicates that she is cross, 
 I don't feel free to talk during her lesson or to answer her ques- 
 tions; it also discourages me and makes me not to enjoy the subject. 
 As a result I often remain silent waiting impatiently for the period 
 to end." 
 
 " Our teacher's voice was so sharp and cross that whenever she 
 called my name, I became very nervous and could not answer her 
 questions even when I knew them well." (Thirty-one cases.) 
 
 On the other hand, a teacher who teaches out of the fulness 
 of her heart will stimulate more responses in the children's 
 minds and hearts. 
 
 Again when a questioner puts a special emphasis on a 
 certain word or uses either rising or falling inflection in her 
 questioning, the corresponding answer may be of little value. 
 An observer takes a suggestion from the word that seemed 
 most emphasized and reacts to it with the very word. Such 
 a reaction is most likely to take place when a " yes or no " 
 question or a " leading question " is asked with a certain 
 inflection of tone. 
 
 Closely related to the above factors is a questioner's 
 expectant attitude towards an observer. " As well known," 
 says Krebs, " if everybody, especially those to whom we look 
 
160 A STUDY OP QUESTIONING 
 
 up expect us to fail, it requires the puissance of a psycho- 
 logical giant to withstand this killing psychic atmosphere. . . . 
 If, however, they expect us to do our best, that very co- 
 operative expectation inspires and infires us to do it, and we 
 succeed." (31. pp. 53-54.) So, too, the expectation of a 
 teacher causes the weak-minded, the discouraged, the nervous, 
 and the like to form the same opinion of themselves. Thought 
 tends to realize itself in actuality ; they become what they think. 
 This is why some children are made nervous or confused and 
 often fail to answer a question or to recite, when asked with 
 words like these : " John, can you answer, I don't think you 
 can, but try it ; Mary, I doubt if you can. . . . and so on/' 
 
 A seventeen-year-old girl reports : " In another class I am almost 
 afraid to say anything, because the teacher impresses me as having 
 the attitude that she is sure I am going to make a mistake, and that 
 she is very much surprised if my statement is correct. In one 
 or two instances, I have known this teacher to stop a pupil in the 
 midst of a statement, saying that it was wrong; while if she had 
 let the pupil finish it would have been correct." (Five cases.) 
 
 Another factor that has an important effect on the nature and 
 the possibility of an answer is a sympathetic or nonsympathe- 
 tic attitude. Sympathy is an indispensable quality for normal 
 suggestibility. As in water, face answereth face, so in man, 
 the heart to heart. The following examples are illustrative: 
 
 " The plaintiff, a laboring man, had been thrown to the street pave- 
 ment from the platform of a car . . ., and had dislocated his 
 shoulder. He had testified . . . that ... he had not been 
 able to follow his usual employment for the reason that he could not 
 raise his arm above a point parallel with his shoulder. Upon cross- 
 examination the attorney for the railroad asked the witness a few 
 sympathetic questions about his sufferings, and upon getting on a 
 friendly basis with him asked him 'to be good enough to show the 
 jury the extreme limit to which he could raise his arm since the 
 accident.' The plaintiff slowly and with considerable difficulty raised 
 his arm to the parallel of his shoulder. ' Now, using the same arm, 
 show the jury how high you could get it up before the accident,' 
 quietly continued the attorney; whereupon the witness extended his 
 arm to its full height above his head, amid peals of laughter from 
 the court and jury." (68. pp. 47-48.) 
 
 Such a drama is played by our school children more or less 
 in response to a teacher's sympathy towards them. The effect 
 of any unsympathetic attitude appears in various ways as 
 follows : 
 
 A girl says: "One teacher I had was never sympathetic toward 
 me. She was always finding fault with my recitation and answer 
 unless I recited the lesson in her words. Thus I failed to answer 
 even the easiest question." (Eight cases.) 
 
 Another girl says: "A fault-finding attitude of our teacher amuses 
 me so much that I look indifferent and hit less in my answering in 
 order to excite her." (Three cases.) 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING l6l 
 
 RELATION BETWEEN QUESTIONS AND THE PERSON 
 QUESTIONED 
 
 All experimental results show that a suggestive question 
 succeeds in one case, but fails in another. It never succeeds 
 uniformly. Again some persons are so suggestible that they 
 are influenced, even by nonsuggestive questions (57. 
 p. 132) ; others can resist even the strongest suggestion 
 involved in a question. The suggestiveness of a question thus 
 depends primarily upon the suggestibility of the person ques- 
 tioned, and this is not constant, being dependent on many 
 internal as well as external factors. 
 
 First of all, the mental content of the person questioned 
 is responsible for the suggestiveness of a question. The 
 potential starting point of an individual reaction is an object 
 or a fact, ideal or perceptual; and every object, or idea, 
 possesses for an individual mind a stimulative or a suggestive 
 influence. The individual conscious state at the moment inter- 
 prets a stimulus, accepting or rejecting it. Hence, if the 
 content of the mind in question is poor, ill organized and 
 unsystematized, the mind is apt to be a victim of an external 
 as well as an internal stimulus. This is the reason why many 
 experimenters hold that the less intelligent an observer is, 
 the more suggestible he is, and that children are, in general, 
 more suggestible than adults. Even with people of higher 
 intelligence, deficiency of knowledge relating to the given 
 topic heightens the suggestibility of the person questioned. 
 
 In the case of a child, a similar suggestibility occurs when- 
 ever there is little or no direct conflict with his experience. 
 A child believes in any commanding idea, in a pleasurable or 
 wished-for thing as well as a dreadful or not-wished-for 
 thing. This subjectively conditioned belief, auto-suggestion 
 or credulity supposes always a grade of dissociation, from 
 which no child can be absolutely free. If this dissociation 
 increases, the object of each agreeable idea can be finally 
 believed and appears as real. (37. p. 246.) Belief is an 
 original and a natural process in the mind of a child. He 
 does not doubt any thing that he learns until he has accum- 
 mulated a considerable amount of knowledge, and attained 
 a relatively high stage in the development of intelligence. 
 Moreover " to doubt is usually unpleasant and may arouse 
 complicated strain sensations to add a new element to the 
 unpleasantness" (46. p. 34). 
 
 Consequently, even when a child's knowledge is compara- 
 tively accurate, when he is under the sway of an authoritative 
 impression or his own auto-suggestion, he may answer as 
 suggested, thinking that perhaps that is called ' A/ which 
 
162 A STUDY OP QUESTIONING 
 
 used to be called ' B/ Such a reaction may not take place so 
 easily if a question is asked by a fellow-student or an inferior 
 person, but it is apt to happen under the influence of authority. 
 When a person is influenced by a suggestion he loses his 
 critical or analytical power towards the form and content of a 
 question and simply attends to or searches in his memory for 
 corresponding ideas, and finally produces his answer as if it 
 was a spontaneous report. Whenever credulity and authority 
 go together, the result is doubtful. Lack of will, too great 
 credulity, and too little self-criticism are great obstacles to 
 independent, self-assertive reaction (62. p. 272). 
 
 Another group of persons yield to a suggestion even against 
 their own knowledge, because of their affection or because 
 ambition is aroused towards a questioner. An observer 
 really knows that to answer ' A ' or not to answer at all is con- 
 tradictory to his own knowledge, but he does not venture to 
 resist the question asked ; for he does not like to make himself 
 disliked, or he fears punishment or some kind of annoyance. 
 (33. p. 216.) Thus under certain circumstances, some 
 observers conclude not to contradict directly, but also not to 
 come in conflict with their own knowledge, and hence take 
 an attitude of a compromise. (33. p. 231.) These affective 
 reactions perhaps decrease with growing mental development 
 and education. If this affection becomes stronger the sug- 
 gestibility of an observer in general increases. " Whatever 
 weakens the reason," says Cooley, " and thus destroys the 
 breadth and symmetry of consciousness, produces some form 
 of suggestibility. . . ." (18. p. 40.) So, too, Bleuler says 
 that the suggestibility grows proportionately with the strength 
 of an existent affection (7. p. 54), so that we find memory 
 illusions even in the normal individual as soon as affection 
 comes into play (7. p. 69). He continues: "Both sug- 
 gestibility and affection render criticism difficult or check it 
 even completely." (7. p. 69.) If an observer comes under 
 such an influence, he becomes the unresisting instrument of a 
 questioner. (58. p. 333.) He gives an answer to a question, 
 but does not examine whether it is right or not ; he simply 
 contents himself with a vague feeling that it may be correct ; 
 he estimates the authority of the examiner higher than that of 
 his memory. 
 
 Similarly the ambition of an observer changes the quality 
 and quantity of an answer to some extent. Franken (22. pp. 
 214 ff), Kosog (29. pp. 71-72) and others have shown that 
 the ambition of an observer increases with the range of his 
 knowledge, increasing the extent of an answer but reducing 
 its qualitative value. The reason seems to be that with 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 163 
 
 ambition the power of caution or criticism is checked and the 
 childish imagination is intensified (29. pp. 71-72). 
 
 Closely connected with this group of reactions is a type of 
 reaction traceable to the so-called counter or contrary sug- 
 gestibility. This is a tendency to react, immediately, uncritic- 
 ally or critically, but always negatively, to the suggestion 
 made. (39. pp. 372-374.) If such observers notice that 
 a definite answer is suggested by a question, then they form 
 the opinion that this answer will probably be false. 
 
 There is an acute type of this contrary-suggestibility which 
 may be termed an inborn contrary-suggestibility. Here the 
 mode of reaction approaches almost the negativism described 
 by Kraepelin as " the instinctive resistance against every outer 
 influence upon the will" (8. p. 10). As soon as such an 
 one gets suggestion, he feels antagonistic ; no idea suggested 
 gives him any satisfaction and so he chooses something else, 
 and the " something else " is apt to be the opposite, since 
 " each idea suggests, as it were, a contrary idea as its natural 
 complement" (8. p. 32). 
 
 However this tendency in children is not rebellion or con- 
 scious assertion of the self against an opposing will. " It 
 represents rather that stage in the normal process of self- 
 development in which the crude materials of rational action 
 have been given, but in which successful co-ordination has not 
 yet become possible" (39. p. 379). "But to have become 
 the characteristic form of reaction in an adult is an indication 
 of arrested development, since in proportion as this type of 
 action predominates, the mind becomes blinded to the very 
 basis of rational conduct. It must be utilized to estab- 
 lish that habit of reflecting upon reasons for and against any 
 suggested course of conduct" (39. p. 380). 
 
 Besides those above mentioned, there are still at least two 
 types of reaction due to exercise or repetition. A question 
 draws the attention of the observer to a given problem and 
 gives rise to an idea of purpose (Aufgabe) to solve it. This 
 idea of purpose conditions a certain mental state which may 
 be called " Attitude or a definite reaction mood " (Einstel- 
 lung)^ (33. p. 77). This attitude or mood, after several 
 repetitions of reactions to the same stimulus in a definite way, 
 is apt to develop into the purely mechanical or expectant mode 
 of reaction. 
 
 The purely mechanical reaction or habit is found to play 
 a great role in the well known abnormal or supernormal 
 suggestibility of soldiers (50. p. 315), policemen, children 
 and others, under strict discipline. Here the suggestibility 
 is undoubtedly fostered by exercise. So, too, some observers 
 
164 A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 
 are found very often to acquire the habit of either a motor 
 or vocal reaction, to a similar stimulus. If children are 
 habituated to react with an answer " yes " to a " yes or no " 
 question, they will be mechanized to this mood of reaction, 
 and will answer without reflection but merely automatically, 
 even when the content of a question is entirely changed from 
 true to false. 
 
 To discover how an expectant attitude affects even normal 
 questions, Lipmann (33. pp. 78-81) made another experiment 
 which showed that the increase of error is greater in an 
 experiment with a leading question as the first of a list of 
 questions than in a series without such a question, which 
 produces an expectant attitude towards the rest. Again an 
 expectant attitude may affect suggestive questions in a peculiar 
 way. For instance, after an observer has answered a number 
 of normal questions in succession, he is apt to fall into the 
 trap of a suitably formulated suggestive question, or questions 
 where their suggestive character is not apparent (33. p. 77). In 
 all these experiments it is hard to say how much of the results 
 is to be ascribed to suggestive questions, and how much to an 
 expectant attitude, but we may safely say that the expectant 
 attitude has played an important role, since its function is to 
 dull the critical power, which Rodenwaldt (50. p. 316) found 
 stands in inverse ratio to suggestibility. There are cases, 
 however, as in Seashore's experiments, where even the 
 greatest caution will not ensure protection against skillful 
 suggestion (56. p. 43). 
 
 Children's suggestibility may be due also to their lack of 
 attention, defective observation, lack of language, etc., or all 
 these factors combined. It is thus difficult to say that a 
 particular result is caused by a definite influence. It is a 
 teacher's function to investigate the suggestibility of each 
 pupil and to make practical use of such knowledge. 
 
 QUESTIONS FROM THE PEDAGOGICAL POINT OF VIEW 
 
 Questions, as employed by teachers, may be divided accord- 
 ing to their purpose. 
 
 1. The preliminary or experimental question aims to find 
 out what the pupil knows. The teacher, by means of this class 
 of questions, is able to arouse a pupil's curiosity and intellec- 
 tual activity (21. pp. 76, 81). 
 
 2. The questions employed in actual instruction, by means 
 of which the reasoning power of a learner is exercised are 
 analytical or developmental. The purpose of the analytical 
 question is to analyze knowledge into its elements in order to 
 bring its implications to consciousness (19. pp. 180), while 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 165 
 
 the developmental question is to aid the pupil in arriving at a 
 clear comprehension of classes, rules, principles, etc. It is 
 especially applicable in the inductive approach to general 
 truths, but equally serviceable in making verification of 
 principles assumed (19. p. 181). These two types of question 
 are generally employed in scientific studies or those which 
 exercise reasoning power. Their aim is both to impart knowl- 
 edge and to train purposive thinking. 
 
 3. The questions, through which a teacher tests her own 
 work after a lesson has been given and ascertains whether 
 it has been thoroughly understood, may be called disciplinary 
 or ' examination questions.' 
 
 4. Very closely connected with questions for examination 
 are those for review. Here the aim is to impress the facts 
 taught upon children's minds. 
 
 5. Another type of question aims exclusively at drill, the 
 establishment of a sort of mechanical association, as employed, 
 for instance, in language studies. Here the attainment of 
 a prompt reply is the sole aim. This type of question is unfor- 
 tunately abused in our school recitations and often applied to 
 subject-matter for which it is unsuited. 
 
 The most fundamental function of questions in most cases 
 is didactic, that is, to stimulate thought in the direction of 
 the solution of a problem, instead of mere verbal memory 
 exercise, drill or habit-formation. It is to lead pupils to recall 
 objects previously known, to bring to consciousness former 
 experiences to give a new meaning. But unfortunately the 
 belief in a " faculty of memory " has led popular educationists 
 to an exaggerated estimate of the value of questions for verbal 
 memory training. Certainly memory is a basal factor for all 
 sorts of learning, as Miss Calkins says, " not only creative 
 imagination but all forms of thought are based on memory." 
 We are, however, skeptical of that sort of teaching which 
 merely aims to equip children with a mass of fragmentary 
 dissociated knowledge in order that they may later in life find 
 a use for it. The teaching of children's memories must be 
 based on rational understanding so that they may be able to 
 control or direct their ideas toward some end, toward the 
 solution of some problem. 
 
 According to Stevens' investigation (65. p. 47), an average 
 number of questions during a History lesson of one period is 
 ninety-three, for English, eighty-five; of the former 76.6%, 
 and of the latter 49%, are based directly upon the repetition 
 of the text-book. For example: When was the battle of 
 Waterloo fought? When was Scott born? What kings of 
 England led crusades? Now what do such questions suggest 
 
l66 A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 
 to children? Will they not become merely an incentive to 
 memorize by rote the words of the book, rather than to work 
 out the problem and get ideas of their own? They do not 
 stimulate reflection as do such questions as, for instance: 
 Why do you like the Lady of the Lake better than Marmion? 
 Why is it that Minneapolis could develop so quickly ? Compare 
 the quality of A with that of B. By pure memory questions 
 pupils become apparently but not really self-active. Thus 
 Scherer even went so far as to say that the apparently greatest 
 perfection in the art of questioning has as its result the 
 greatest dependency of the pupils (54. p. 27). 
 
 Over twenty-five per cent of the more than 300 returns to 
 our questionnaire as to what school subjects were liked or dis- 
 liked state that the writers liked English literature and History 
 best, if the teachers did not bother them by silly questions on 
 trifling facts and waste time without going into any interpre- 
 tation or evaluation of the literature itself. This is clearly 
 brought out in the following excerpt : 
 
 " I have had experiences in English literature where we were driven 
 to stand and tell from memory the names of authors, when they 
 were born, where they were born, how long they lived, what books 
 they wrote, when they died, where they died, where they were buried, 
 and so on along the same line. I myself at least was bored to death. 
 I wonder what such study of literature can amount to? Absolutely 
 nothing to me, yes worse than nothing, as I changed my purpose." 
 
 The burden that such a study inflicts upon pupils creates a 
 hatred of literature often never overcome. The problem 
 naturally arises, what questions then shall be used? The 
 answer is: analytical and developmental questions, whether 
 the method used be Socratic, inductive or deductive, topical 
 or dialectic. 
 
 Dr. Dewey says that " a demand for the solution of a per- 
 plexity is the steadying and guiding factor in the entire process 
 of reflection" (20. p. n). It becomes thus a function of 
 questions to present this demand for the solution of a definite 
 problem as a first step. A general appeal, however, to a child 
 to think, irrespective of his own experience or knowledge is 
 futile. Experience is the anchor of both wisdom and sanity 
 (13. p. 64). Given a problem, the next step is to stimulate 
 thought by a series of interrogations leading each pupil to 
 correct reasoning. This method may, in a certain sense, be 
 called Socratic, but not in the sense which Socrates himself 
 used it. Care should be taken in the use of the so-called 
 Socratic method ; for it is primarily intended for adults who 
 have much experience, and moreover it is, in its nature, 
 altogether too destructive. It discourages the child by break- 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 167 
 
 ing down his misconceptions, by revealing his ignorance or his 
 absurdity, while it offers him little or nothing of constructive 
 material. Consequently it is likely to force the mind to think 
 along a negative rather than a positive line or to lead to 
 indifference. We may, however, make use of it by rendering 
 it simpler and more constructive (28. p. 376). The 
 teacher stimulates and directs, but never suggests a conclusion 
 or an answer. Pupils are encouraged to present their own 
 thoughts. If correct, the teacher deepens and widens their 
 views by suggestive illustrations. If incorrect, their absurdity 
 is shown by leading them to discover legitimate consequences. 
 Thus the leartier at every step feels the joy of discovery and 
 victory instead of discouragement. In all this the teacher is 
 only the stimulator of the pupil's thinking. The secret is: 
 " never suggest, anything which you can lead a pupil to find 
 out and tell you." Given a problem, suggestions in the mind 
 of the child follow the laws of association. The greater the 
 fluidity of ideas, and the greater the number of the suggestions 
 that arise, the more likely is the fcrue solution to be obtained ; 
 but all these may fail ; then only may a questioner suggest the 
 conclusion. 
 
 If any suggestion of an answer is given from without and 
 accepted at once, there will be no critical thinking, simply 
 a minimum of reflection. If this kind of interrogation con- 
 tinues for months and years, the child will become a puppet 
 and passive in his thinking, instead of active, self-assertive, 
 and independent of external suggestion. 
 
 Another pernicious practice is that of helping or directing 
 pupils too much in their recitations by questions or otherwise. 
 They are never left alone to direct their own steps, and are 
 never afforded any opportunity of self-direction to develop 
 sufficiently the power of initiative. Should it then be a matter 
 of surprise that when left to themselves to think and to decide 
 or solve a problem, they dawdle and get nowhere? 
 
 Another method of developing the power of purposive 
 thinking in a pupil is by means of dialectic or discussion. In 
 this method, the pupils present their arguments briefly and 
 pointedly in favor of their respective positions. All criticisms 
 are answered and contested. The reasons for and against are 
 carefully weighed. In these mental conflicts, the utmost power 
 of the pupil is called forth. It not only cultivates mental 
 power, but also self-assertion, independence, courtesy and 
 liberality toward an opponent, and the virtue of fair play. It 
 supplements the so-called Socratic method, by making the 
 pupils think. Of course this method is not applicable to young 
 pupils, but to a certain extent and in somewhat modified form 
 
l68 A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 
 it can surely be utilized for pupils of the later grades and 
 the high schools. 
 
 Here it may be instructive to cite an experiment by C. H. 
 King (27. pp. 158-9) on the reasoning powers of children. 
 He gave the following two questions to children of from 
 twelve to fifteen years of age. " The first question runs : 
 There are several clever boys in this class and they are all 
 careless, so a clever boy must be careless. Do you agree with 
 this? The second question is: French people are excitable, 
 so are Italians; so all foreigners are excitable. Is this true? 
 The first question was solved correctly by 144 (44.4%) of all 
 the children who answered, and the second by 172 (56.8%). 
 He concludes that a considerable portion of those who have 
 received a good education and. have reached the age of fifteen 
 years fail to show anything but the germs of logical thinking " 
 
 Why is this? Why should pupils fail in such simple 
 reasoning? Are these problems beyond their powers? Cer- 
 tainly not. 
 
 The habit of reflecting upon the reasons for and against any 
 problem should be promoted by a kind of dialectic method. 
 By a series of suitable questions the pupils are led not only 
 to pause before they react, but also to review or analyze the 
 complex system of factors involved in the case, so that their 
 reaction is made deliberate and rational; otherwise they 
 become mere empirical thinkers, of whom, James says: 
 " Whereas the merely empirical thinker stares at a fact in its 
 entirety and remains helpless or gets ' stuck ' if it suggests no 
 concomitant or similar, the (analytic) reasoner breaks it up 
 and notices some one of its separate attributes. This 'attribute 
 has properties or consequences which the fact until then was 
 not known to have, but which, now that it is noticed to contain 
 the attribute, it must have." MacDougall says : " The ideal 
 type of human action, which all conscious education seeks to 
 develop, is that in which each novel situation is critically 
 reviewed as it arises before it is responded to by an adaptive 
 reaction (instinctive reaction) " (39. p. 381). 
 
 Questions may also be utilized to disclose the intellectual or 
 emotional bias of an individual so that reactions or answers may 
 be given without prejudice (34. p. 28). According to Freud, 
 " our mental processes are more rigorously determined than is 
 commonly believed, and many of them generally thought to be 
 causeless have in fact a very precise and definable cause. The 
 same remark applies to many mental processes where we 
 believe that we have a perfectly free choice. Most important, 
 however, is the extension of these principles to the sphere of 
 human judgment, for it is probable that repressed complexes 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 169 
 
 play as prominent a part in distortion of our ideas. On a 
 large scale this is shown in two ways, in the minimum of 
 evidence often necessary to secure the acceptance of an idea 
 that is in harmony with existing mental constellations, or to 
 reject one that is incompatible with these. In both cases it is 
 often the affective influence rather than the intellectual opera- 
 tions that decides the question. The same evidence is con- 
 strued quite differently when viewed in the light of one 
 affective constellation than when viewed in the' light of 
 another" (25. pp. 478, 524). 
 
 Wrong ideas and inappropriate propositions enter conscious- 
 ness through many doors and should be corrected by the 
 influence of opposite ideas which a faithful memory and a 
 sound reasoning provide (43). But if pupils are not trained 
 to look into things, to reflect for and against a given problem, 
 and to judge it fairly, they will be at the mercy of their 
 instinctive reactions and feelings. 
 
 THE QUALITIES OF GOOD QUESTIONS 
 
 It is of prime importance for a teacher to provide a certain 
 .mental background necessary for the lesson and harmonize it 
 with her own so that both pupil and teacher may have a 
 closely similar apperception, though not composed of the same 
 elements (2. p. 95). Otherwise a problem under considera- 
 tion may be looked at from wholly different points of view and 
 there may be a mutual failure in understanding. This is the 
 reason why the teacher so often fails to get correct answers 
 from her pupils. For instance : " Where was St. Paul con- 
 verted?" asks the teacher, speaking from a geographical point 
 of view ; but the pupil responds, " In the ninth chapter of the 
 Acts," from a background of textual reference (2. pp. 95- 
 96). Hence the necessity of bringing the teacher's own mental 
 background into harmony with that of her pupils in order 
 that the questions may be comprehended and answered 
 correctly. 
 
 Moreover a question should be clear, concise and logical. 
 The first requisite is its clear comprehension. If the question 
 lacks clearness or is ambiguous, it occasions hesitancy and 
 confusion, so that some children may decline to answer, even 
 when they know the answer well. " An Ohio school teacher 
 asked of her class one day a question, but did not draw the 
 prompt response she expected. With some surprise she 
 turned to one of the boys, saying, ' You know what I want 
 you to say, Johnnie ; whv don't you say it ? ' Johnnie replied, 
 ' I know what you want all right, but you ain't asked the 
 question what fetches it." Here the youth, wiser than the 
 
17 A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 
 teacher, refused to yield up his store of information to an 
 ambiguous question (65. p. 4). 
 
 Questions should neither be too universal nor too general. 
 For instance: "Where is Chicago?" may bring out the 
 answers ' In Illinois,' ' on Lake Michigan/ ' in the United 
 States,' etc. All these answers have equal value for such a 
 question. 
 
 All these vague questions admit of several equally good 
 answers, according to the different points of view from which 
 different minds regard them; but many teachers think that 
 what is clear to them ought to be equally clear to others, so 
 that when an answer is given contrary to their expectation, 
 it is rejected, even though a perfectly legitimate one; while, 
 if any pupil is fortunate enough to give the precise answer 
 in the teachers' mind, he is commended and rewarded, even 
 though he has given no more thought to the subject (21. p. 
 91). The really thoughtful and cautious child is merely 
 bewildered by such questions. He remains silent and will be 
 disgusted when an answer is given by his less worthy com- 
 rades. The second type is the pupil who is not very clever but 
 shrewd as to the personal peculiarities of his teacher, watches 
 her facial expressions, tone of voice, method and mode of 
 questioning, etc., and discovers easily what she expects. The 
 third type of learner takes a chance by answering at random 
 without thinking it over. He is thus led to form a habit of 
 guessing and insincerity. 
 
 Great simplicity of language is another condition. It is 
 better to use as few words as possible, since the function of a 
 question is not only to cause children to say as much as 
 possible, but to avoid confusion, and a loose, pointless answer 
 which is apt to result from a wordy question. 
 
 The questions should be adapted to the mind and experi- 
 ences of the child. An intelligent teacher usually knows in 
 advance which pupils can answer her questions, and this 
 makes possible adaptation of the questions to the pupils. But, 
 unfortunately, it too often happens that a teacher tries 
 obstinately to elicit from the pupil's mind what is not in it. 
 Whenever the question fails to fit the mind of the learner, 
 it presents difficulty after difficulty, and causes embarrassment 
 and confusion, which will cause some pupils to give up all 
 attempts to reply and lead others to imitate their comrades or 
 to reply at haphazard. 
 
 One girl says : " When I was in the eighth grade, our teacher 
 used to ask such bewildering questions that most of the class could 
 not understand, but she insisted upon our thinking until we hit upon 
 what she had in her mind. If we did not at once hit upon her thought, 
 her eyes became large and black, her voice harsh and her manner 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING i;i 
 
 made us feel as though we were the most unintelligent beings pos- 
 sible and as a consequence we became nervous, and gave up any 
 attempt to solve or answer the questions." Examples of such be- 
 wildering questions can be found in many educational writings, and 
 we cite a few of them here. Betts says : One teacher asked, " Which 
 phenomena of the fratricidal strife in the American Republic were 
 most determinative of the ultimate fate of the nation?" While in 
 an elementary history class, another teacher propounded this ques- 
 tion : " What American institutions have been founded on the prin- 
 ciple of social democracy?" (4. pp. 66-67.) Now in all these ques- 
 tions not only the terminology, but the thoughts also are beyond the 
 comprehension of the children. Such questions are not only useless, 
 but confuse and discourage the children, and cause them to lose 
 interest in study. How difficult it is to adapt questions to children 
 is clearly seen from the following examples given as a model by a 
 college professor in one of the largest American universities : " How 
 long do you think it would take a man to walk to the top of a 
 mountain? What would be the difficulties in getting to the top? 
 If you stood on the top and threw a stone, how far down the moun- 
 tain do you think it would go ? " To the writer who was brought 
 up among the mountains, such questions sound nonsensical. 
 
 Undoubtedly with many pupils under the conditions created 
 by a series of ill-adapted questions, the brain becomes inhibi- 
 tive or a storm center of opposing nervous impulses and the 
 mind loses all docility. The following investigation may throw 
 some light upon this point. In 1909, Miss Helen Todd (67. 
 pp. 73-74) took 500 children from twenty different factories 
 and asked them the question : " If your father had a good job 
 and you didn't have to work, which would you rather do 
 go to school or work in a factory? " Four hundred and twelve 
 said they would rather work in a factory and gave among 
 others the following reasons : " Because it is easier to work 
 in a factory than it is to learn in school ; " " You never under- 
 stands what they tells you in school, and you can learn right 
 off to do things in a factory ; " ;< They ain't always picking on 
 you because you don't know things in a factory ; " " It's so 
 hard to learn ; " "I couldn't learn ; " " When you works a 
 whole month at school, the teacher she gives you a card to 
 take home, that says how you ain't any good." 
 
 These cases might be diminished by well-adapted question- 
 ing which will give a child success and hence pleasure and an 
 incentive for further attempts. Every teacher has noticed with 
 what enthusiasm and vigor children take up different tasks in 
 their school lessons after they have been successful in the solu- 
 tion of some problem. " Not all the coaxing, or scolding, or 
 moralizing in the world would fit them half so well to take 
 up the new work, as the victory already won " (12. p. 112). 
 Belief in power begets power, in weakness, begets weakness. 
 Upon self-confidence depends the mental development of the 
 child (47. p. 267). Hence it is important for mental hygiene 
 
I7 2 A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 
 to give children a chance for success, and to arouse self- 
 confidence in their ability; and this is the very task of ques- 
 tioning. It goes without saying that it is also important to 
 allow a slight failure once in a while as a specific medicine. 
 Meumann illustrates the importance of the self-confidence 
 of a child in his own power from the experience of a boy 
 whom he knew. 
 
 When a thirteen-year-old boy entered a new school, his previous 
 teacher who had an antipathy to him, introduced him to the new 
 teacher in a tactless manner with false report From that moment 
 the boy, who so far had done work above the average, could do 
 nothing more, his intellectual efforts diminished from day to day, 
 behavior deteriorated, and he became shy and depressed. At the 
 end of the year he failed to be promoted, and would have gone to 
 pieces, had not his parents taken him away. In the new school he 
 met a teacher who showed confidence in him, and from that moment 
 he changed completely, and left the school as one of the best pupils. 
 Meumann gives this case as typical in that a single definite volitional 
 inhibition entering into the life of the child, extended to his whole 
 inner nature, discouraged his self-confidence, depressed his affective 
 life, and decreased all his performances intellectual as well as moral 
 (42. p. 298). 
 
 The effectiveness of such a volitional inhibition is most 
 easily observed in the psychological laboratory-tests on 
 immediate retention (42. pp. 298-300). We cite also one of 
 our questionnaire returns. 
 
 A girl writes : " Behind the teacher's tones and expressions I have 
 usually been able to read her attitude to the class and towards 
 myself. When I know that a teacher has entire confidence in me 
 and expects a certain response on my part, the most difficult subject 
 becomes easy to me. On the other hand, when a glance tells me that 
 my ability to answer is questioned, no matter how carefully the lesson 
 has been prepared, my power over the subject seems to depart, and 
 I fail in general." 
 
 Children are very susceptible to such volitional inhibitions ; 
 and such an inhibition is too frequently caused by ill-adapted 
 questions which simply bring about failure after failure, or 
 by the unsympathetic sarcasm of the teacher or the like. 
 
 QUESTIONS SHOULD NOT BE NUMEROUS 
 
 A multiplicity of questions is likely to discourage and 
 fatigue children because of the monotony of the procedure. 
 According to Stevens' investigation, already referred to, the 
 number of questions in one recitation period is, on an average, 
 85.3 for English, 81.2 for History and 81.4 for Science. That 
 is, the children are asked about two questions per minute. 
 Embarrassment, repulsion, constraint, weariness, etc., will 
 often be the outcome of such a method of numerous questions, 
 
A STUDY OP QUESTIONING 173 
 
 as the following excerpt illustrates : " There is one teacher 
 who asks question after question and does nothing else for 
 a whole period ; and everything becomes monotonous and one 
 feels really wearied so that one can not understand what is 
 going on." Another girl says : " As a result of too many 
 questions we become indifferent ; " still others say that they 
 become nervous and impatient. 
 
 Effectiveness and leadership in social life depend on the 
 ability to express one's self adequately on the topic under 
 consideration. But in the schoolroom the number of ques- 
 tions, whether good or bad are apt to be so large that there is 
 no time left for complete expression of thought. The pupils 
 are allowed merely to punctuate the questions with mono- 
 syllabic answers, or with a few words. The following example 
 from a lesson on " The Lady of the Lake " will illustrate the 
 point (65. pp. 38-42, 66). The number of questions asked 
 in one recitation period was 105 out of which 60 were 
 answered with less than five words: 
 
 T. We will see; hold your judgment until the end, and see. How 
 much is description used in the story, Mr. J.? Is there very much? 
 
 P. Quite a little. 
 
 T. For what did it seem to be put in? 
 
 P. I think one place the Canto starts very quietly, and then the 
 clan gathered in the fiercest preparation, terrible oaths, shows con- 
 trasts. 
 
 T. Is it put in then, just as a scene, or for some distinct purpose? 
 
 P. Distinct purpose. 
 
 T. And in this case it was? 
 
 P. Contrast. 
 
 T. What other descriptions? 
 
 P. Nature. 
 
 T. Very much space taken up with descriptions of nature? 
 
 P. Yes. 
 
 T. Have you a pretty fair idea of the country? 
 
 P. Yes. 
 and so on. 
 
 The questions should be made so that every child may have 
 frequent incentives to answer in well-articulated sentences. 
 Dr. Lay says (32a. pp. 303-4) that "too great emphasis has 
 been put upon questioning without thinking, that in the 
 schoolroom is fostered a form of conversation that has an 
 analogy in the court room alone. He further says : ' The 
 natural form of conversation should be preserved in the 
 schoolroom, especially, since the question is unpleasant or 
 even painful to most children. The child must have freedom 
 to follow his own thought process, not that of the teacher." 
 And for this purpose, description, narration, and exposition, 
 or in other words, the method of our spontaneous report is 
 very desirable. We are, however, by no means inclined to 
 
174 A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 
 slight the questions and questioning, but simply to guard 
 against the use of too many fragmentary questions. An inter- 
 change of all these methods of description, exposition, narra- 
 tion and good questions contributes to freshness and interest. 
 It is, of course, too much to demand a complete sentence for 
 every question, and again it is pedantry to banish all questions 
 that can be answered by " yes " or " no." We need, however, 
 to be sure that a sufficient reason follows or precedes the 
 answer, so that the ' yes,' or ' no ' may neither be a mere guess 
 nor an automatic expression. 
 
 Here it may be worth noting that the teacher who accepts 
 vague and indefinite answers incidentally encourages slovenly 
 habits of thought and fosters guessing. A child is quick to 
 take advantage of the teacher who will accept any sort of an 
 answer and interpret it as a statement containing thought. 
 Indeed, a child may even come to think that his incoherent 
 statements, his word juggling, really represent thought (66. 
 pp. iio-m). Worse than this is the danger that a teacher 
 may lead the child to insincerity of speech. Instead of truth, 
 he will have appearances ; instead of real powers, pre- 
 sumptuous weakness; instead of sincerity, hypocrisy. 
 
 Again, it seems even better to permit the pupil to blunder 
 through to the end of his recitation and correct him than to 
 disturb him in the midst of his speech. 
 
 A Normal School girl says: "A certain teacher I once had was 
 very impatient. Before I would go to the room I would know the 
 lesson almost word for word. When she called on me to recite, 
 if she did not interrupt me, I could finish the recitation, but as 
 soon as she began to ask many questions and then scold if they 
 were not answered correctly, I would forget the work which I had 
 before known so thoroughly, and as a result would fail." (Thirteen 
 cases.) 
 
 Moreover the method of numerous questions means that 
 things and their qualities are torn apart, retailed and detailed, 
 without reference to their more general character, and thus 
 the child is not only hindered from seeing the " forest on 
 account of the trees," but also the firm retention of the subject- 
 matter is rendered very difficult (20. p. 97). 
 
 TIME SHOULD BE GIVEN FOR ANSWERING 
 
 Rapiditv in questioning intensifies the attention of children 
 to great advantage and is undoubtedly necessary for peda- 
 gogical purposes, but its dangers should not be overlooked. 
 
 First of all, speedy questioning emphasises the quantity 
 instead of the qualitv of the work. When a teacher demands 
 of each pupil to answer quicker than the other for the sake 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 175 
 
 of a brilliant showing, a premium is put upon feverish 
 activity, regardless of the cost to the pupils. According to the 
 experimental results of Hillgruber (i), Rusk (52), Meumann 
 and others, under the compulsion to work as quickly as 
 possible, the amount of work will be far greater than that 
 obtained without such force. Ach (i. p. 2) says: " It is due 
 to the law of difficulty as motivation, that is, to the fact that 
 the difficulty of a forced task motivates a more intense effort 
 of Will and concentration of attention on the present problem." 
 " With the increase of the difficulty," he continues further, 
 " the effort of Will increases instinctively and acts in favor 
 of the work quantitatively." But another aspect of their 
 experimental results confirms our theory as well as Meumann's 
 that under the influence of the compulsion to work as quickly 
 as possible the quality of the work deteriorates. This is cer- 
 tainly due to the interference of association caused by excite- 
 ment, confusion, lack of time, etc. It is obvious that sufficient 
 time is needed to comprehend the questions correctly and to 
 make correct comparison, discrimination, and true inference 
 as well as call forth right associations or to make orderly asso- 
 ciations with the old. The child needs a longer time for indi- 
 vidual ideation, and the ideas with which the child works are 
 not at prompt disposal for him in spite of his accurate posses- 
 sion (42. p. 231). 
 
 Meumann found from his experiments that when rapidity 
 of response is a controlling factor, a stimulus word is com- 
 prehended in the most cursory fashion, so that the repro- 
 ductions are of little value, but with lengthening of the 
 reaction time in general is noted an increase of the qualitative 
 value of the work. He concludes that for tests with a 
 problem to be solved, the instruction " as quickly as possible " 
 is detrimental (42. p. 232). The results of Rusk indicate 
 that for different children the speed of association has little 
 value as an indication of the intelligence of the learner (52. 
 u. 102). The children who reply most quickly are not neces- 
 sarily of the highest intelligence. An exceptionally good 
 memory is often found to co-exist with very low intelligence 
 (52. p. 151). 
 
 On the other hand, Muller and Pilzecker, and Bigham (5. 
 p. 458) also, found that right associations are reproduced 
 more quickly than false; in other words, those ideas which 
 can be reproduced easily are usually truer than those whose 
 recall is difficult, whether this be due to pure forgetfulness 
 or to the confused association with kindred ideas. This again 
 shows that questioning should not be too speedy, since speedy 
 
176 A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 
 questioning will overlook the false association that should be 
 corrected and cleared. 
 
 The experimental results of Franken (22. pp. 239-243) tell 
 us that the lengthening of the time for reflection (Bedenkzeit) 
 brings about a quantitative increase but a qualitative degen- 
 eration, since the increase of right answers is smaller than 
 that of false ones. This result apparently contradicts our 
 theory, but a closer study shows that there is no conflict, 
 but agreement. In Franken's experiment, the observer gave 
 only those answers that were most clear and certain to him, 
 and with the brief interval for reflection, all doubtful answers 
 are rejected. (22. pp. 227-229.) Furthermore his result 
 shows, that the mean variation varies with the length of the 
 time for reflection; it increases if the time is lengthened and 
 decreases if this is shortened ; that recollection needs a certain 
 time, and if, before its process is complete, questions and 
 hence ideas and answers, crowd themselves in consciousness, 
 the recollection will be disturbed and hindered (22. pp. 
 227-9; 2 4i). 
 
 Second: rapid questioning ignores individual differences 
 (59. p. 215), and consequently fosters shallow thinking or 
 guessing. What one pupil solves in a second, another may 
 spend a minute in solving (3. p. 243). Meumann says 
 that : " The concrete thinking of a child is surprisingly slow ; 
 in some cases, he takes almost ten times as long as the adult 
 to respond to a stimulus equally familiar to both " (42. pp. 
 227-8). Children who are more ambitious are apt to answer 
 more quickly than others. Temperament also makes a great 
 difference. The results of Rusk's experiments also disclosed 
 great individual differences in the rates of reaction. For 
 example, an investigation with three boys of the same age 
 and intelligence revealed the fact that one of the boys in- 
 variably took three times as long as the other twa to respond 
 to the stimulus words. The work presented no difficulty, yet 
 his normal rate of reaction was considerably slower (52. 
 pp. 102-3). The teacher of these three boys, although they 
 had been under his care for years, was unaware of any sucu 
 difference, and probably, in oral questions, this boy owing 
 to his slower rate of response, would appear at a disadvantage 
 (53. p. 837). Bader (3. pp. 102-104) obtained similar 
 results, among his five observers those whose reaction-time 
 was shortest gave the poorest answers. 
 
 Furthermore, what effect does a demand to answer " as 
 quickly as possible " have upon the mind of the child ? Ba- 
 der's experiment teaches us that the observer focuses his 
 attention on the act of answering quickly as a result of 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 177 
 
 pressure. Thus those whose natural disposition forces them 
 to a quick reply are still more incited by the stimulus and 
 give flippant, unconsidered answers, while those who are by 
 nature reflective feel in the procedure an unaccustomed im- 
 pulse (3. pp. 243-4). In both cases, as a result, quickness 
 of solution takes place at the cost of quality. To make these 
 results clear, let us cite a few introspective reports of Bader's 
 observers : observer E says : " The task of replying quickly 
 influences consciousness and drives me to do so." Observer 
 F says : " The idea, ' you must reply as quickly as possible/ 
 is always very vivid and governs everything else/' F further 
 says " I do not know why I have said that word. Oh, yes, 
 in an endeavor to answer as quickly as possible, I did not 
 take time to give a sentence, but brought quickly merely a 
 word." B says : " I would have answered differently. At 
 all times I was clear that it (the answer) was false, but I 
 thought that I needed too long a time to do otherwise; and 
 hence I spoke so quickly" (3. p. 100). 
 
 Any demand for speedy reactions deprives a child of time 
 for suspension of judgment and weighing the evidence pro 
 and con; it prevents him from appealing to concrete experi- 
 ence latent in his mind, but encourages him to accept any 
 suggestion from within as well as without and to react at 
 random. As a result such a method may bring about mental 
 automatism, a habit of instinctive, premature reaction. We 
 should keep in mind that the class room is not a vaudeville 
 stage for displaying or rehearsing the mere strength of verbal 
 memory, but a laboratory for testing, getting, verifying, using 
 and developing knowledge, in a word, for the training of 
 purposive thinking. 
 
 It is the function of questioning to make children under- 
 stand first of all the meaning of the question and to make 
 an orderly association between the question and ideas in the 
 answer. A question erroneously comprehended may not only 
 evoke the wrong answer but may also cause an interference 
 of association. Now it happens quite often that when a 
 question is asked under the spur of answering quickly, many 
 children raise their hands first and then think about the 
 problem. The answers are given frequently before the ques- 
 tion is fully understood. With frequency of such a mode 
 of questioning and answering, the child may finally become 
 habituated to a mode of thinking in which the attention, 
 critical insight and examination of the inner process present 
 between the question and answer is neglected. 
 
 From what has been said it follows that the rate or tempo 
 of questioning should be carefully considered for different 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 
 ages and classes of children so as to allow just sufficient time 
 for good reaction. (52. p. 104.) 
 
 It is a matter of course that when questions are put for 
 the sake of drill or of the review upon memorized matter, 
 they may be asked with emphasis and rapidity ; but even then, 
 the individual differences in reaction time and the influence 
 of the command to answer " as quickly as possible " upon 
 the observer should be kept in mind. 
 
 A large number of rapid questions is injurious both to 
 mind and body. As Stevens says, " a large number of rapid 
 questions keeps children in a highly strung nervous tension 
 where there should be natural and normal conditions (65. 
 p. 171). It is certainly injurious to the nervous organism to 
 live in such a high-pressure atmosphere." 
 
 One girl says : " One of my teachers by her mode of speedy 
 questioning causes me to put all of my mental powers on the ques- 
 tions in hand. After spending an hour with that teacher I feel really 
 tired and nervous so that I can not do anything until I have time 
 to recover from my nervousness." 
 
 Another girl reports : " There is a teacher who affects me very 
 much. When I enter her room I am as calm and composed as anyone 
 else should be, but when I leave it I am worked up to such a 
 nervous pitch that I am almost unable to go on with the work of 
 the next hour. It is caused, I believe, by the teacher's incessant 
 calling upon us for answers and recitations." (Seventeen cases.) 
 
 Some individuals can do mental work with far less waste 
 of energy than others even under pressure, but most of us 
 are apt to be made nervous and excitable by undue nervous 
 stress. In some cases, excitement, fatigue and anxiety may 
 cause the beginning of pathological neuroses. 
 
 A girl reports: "At one time I had a teacher who was extremely 
 nervous. When she called on her pupils for answers and recitations, 
 she hardly gave them time to recite or answer by calling for answers, 
 but she would supply words; and just by her whole manner and her 
 mode of questioning she made her pupils so nervous that some forgot 
 everything they knew, some became restless and some of my class- 
 mates gave way even to the nervousness in spells of crying." 
 
 It is especially noteworthy that this speedy habit of re- 
 action and thinking formed by such a method may persist 
 even till late in life and hinders the victim from quiet, deep, 
 and connected thinking. 
 
 Some teachers may say that the ability to concentrate atten- 
 tion on a problem should be cultivated, and hence speedy 
 questions must be used. It is certainly true that the attention 
 of a child is very likely to be dulled by even a few minutes' 
 exposition and that it is aroused by animated questions; but 
 we must not forget that a multiplicity of speedy questions 
 also tires and disgusts the children. After a few minutes, 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 179 
 
 their attention again flags; they will no longer listen to the 
 inquiries of the obstinate questioner, and they will answer only 
 at random, thanks to the defensive mechanism of nature. 
 Hence the method of rapid questioning will rather kill than 
 form the habit of attention. Attentive moment and relaxa- 
 tion-moment should alternate. Above all, it is desirable that 
 attention be paid to the meaning of the question and to the 
 quality of an answer, not to the form of the question nor 
 to the teacher. 
 
 Too slow questioning is, however, detrimental for the 
 education of the will (i. pp. 3-4). The best method may, 
 as Ach suggests, be to let children work at times under the 
 spur of obtaining good results as quickly as possible but with 
 intervals of relaxation. This method conditions an increase 
 of the effort of the will and brings about the best result 
 both qualitatively and quantitatively (i. p. 3). 
 
 Still another point to be considered is that sometimes even 
 the brightest children and some adults too fail to answer in 
 spite of knowledge, when asked a question suddenly, unex- 
 pectedly, or at an examination. The writer's own experi- 
 ence and observation show that such a question causes a 
 sudden arrest of psychic activity, or that there arises out 
 of unconscious complexes an apparently unrelated idea. 
 Thoughts refuse to flow freely, only to lead one to an utter 
 failure, even when well prepared in the subject. The nerve 
 centres for the time seem paralyzed; as soon as one is alone 
 or with a sympathetic friend, the obstruction gives way, and 
 clear-cut correct answers which he might have given in reply 
 to the questions raised are readily thought of. 
 
 Psychologically such a sudden mental arrest may be due to 
 fear, excitement, a feeling of unpreparedness, lack of self- 
 confidence, timidity, shyness, embarrassment, or excessive 
 ambition. 
 
 Whatever the cause may be, the fact remains the same. It 
 is absurd to judge children's mental ability through the an- 
 swers to such questions. Moreover a failure may injure their 
 future work through volitional inhibition. 
 
 In conclusion it may be wise to add that for individuals 
 who have a normal nervous system, adequate nutrition and 
 abundant rest, and especially plenty of sleep, excitement and 
 explosion of energy once in a while may be as essential as 
 rest and the storing of energy. Normal children must be 
 trained to work occasionally under pressure so as to be 
 prepared for the struggles of their future life. To shield 
 pupils entirely from tests of strength is to rear them in weak- 
 ness and timidity (44. p. 118). 
 
l8o A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 
 Finally, the limits which should be observed in the rate and 
 tempo of questioning and in regard to the functions of 
 questions in general, that they may be useful and not harmful 
 to mental development are problems to be studied seriously by 
 every teacher. 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 Experimental evidence from our own investigations and 
 those of others give the following tentative results : 
 
 1. Children attempt the Bericht with a different mental 
 attitude from what they have toward the Verhbr; for example, 
 some children reported correctly in the Bericht what they 
 answered wrongly in the Verhor, while other children make 
 false statements in the Verhor in regard to what they reported 
 correctly in the Bericht. 
 
 2. The weakness of the Bericht seems to be the outcome 
 of three factors, (i) Pedagogically, it appears to be due to 
 passivity of the mind induced by habituation to the questioning 
 method and lack of initiative. (2) Psychologically, it may be 
 due to interference or weakness of association that children 
 fail to recall in the Bericht what they can by the aid of 
 questions. (3) It is undoubtedly in part due to the fact that 
 children's interest is not equally distributed to each detail, 
 and hence they fix their attention on the more interesting 
 facts. 
 
 3. The large number of errors in the Verhor is due not 
 only to* the passivity of the mind and the suggestive character 
 of the questions, but also to the fact that children's mode of 
 viewing things is wholly different from that of adults, while 
 the questions are asked from an adult point of view. 
 
 4. The experimental results show that many children can 
 do better in the Bericht than in the Verhor. In view of this 
 fact is it justifiable to determine the grade of children by the 
 questioning method alone? 
 
 SUMMARY OF PRACTICAL INFERENCES 
 
 1. The Bericht is far more trustworthy than the Verhor, 
 but the range of the former is far smaller than that of the 
 latter. 
 
 2. Either method is defective for testing children; both 
 should go hand in hand. 
 
 3. All questions, whatever their form, have a suggestive 
 influence ; and hence children should be trained to guard 
 against suggestion and to react to the content and not the 
 form of questions. 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING l8l 
 
 4. Children are suggestible to external as well as internal 
 stimuli. They should be trained to withstand unfortunate 
 suggestions. 
 
 5. Children should be trained to formulate questions them- 
 selves on what they have to learn or have learned. 
 
 6. All questions, except those for drill and experimenta- 
 tion, should be for purposive thinking. 
 
 7. The rate and tempo of questioning should be regulated 
 according to the subject matter and the individual differences 
 in reaction time. 
 
 8. The number of questions should not be too numerous. 
 
 9. Questions should neither be too difficult nor too easy, 
 but well adapted to the pupil's mind. 
 
 10. Questions should be clear and logical. 
 
 11. They should be given in few words. 
 
 12. Vague, indefinite, and fragmentary answers should not 
 be accepted. 
 
 13. If possible to avoid it, an answer should not be 
 interrupted. 
 
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184 A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 The questions used in the experiments described above are based 
 on the section (p. 259) on the Guianas in C. C. Adams' Elementary 
 Geography and the section (pp. 18-19) on the Surface of South 
 America in A. E. Frye's Grammar School Geography. " The 
 Guianas: The three Guianas (B. D. and F.), are mainly devoted 
 to the growing and manufacture of cane-sugar and its by-products, 
 rum and molasses. Cultivation is confined almost wholly to a narrow 
 coast strip, where most of the people live. Owing to the decline 
 in the price of sugar the British and Dutch planters are replacing 
 sugar-cane to some extent with coffee and cacao. An important 
 amount of gold is mined in the interior, the British producing the 
 larger part of it. Georgetown and New Amsterdam, the chief towns 
 of British Guiana, owe their importance to the palmy days of the 
 sugar trade. Great Britain and the United States take nearly all of 
 the exports of this colony sugar, gold, rum, rubber, rice, and 
 molasses. Great Britain supplies half and the United States one 
 fourth of the manufactures, food, and coal imported. Paramaribo is 
 the commercial center of Dutch Guiana, nearly all of whose trade 
 is with the Netherlands. French Guiana (port, Cayenne) is less 
 developed than the other colonies, and includes phosphates among 
 its exports. Its trade is mainly confined to France." 
 
 A. Tell what you know about the colonies of the three Guianas. 
 (For the Bericht.} 
 
 B. Series of questions for the Verhor: 
 
 1. To what manufacture are the three Guianas mainly 
 
 devoted? 
 
 2. What by-products are obtained from that manufacture? 
 33. Do most of the people of the Guianas live along the nar- 
 row coast line? 
 
 3b. Do most of the people of the Guianas live in the interior? 
 
 4. What are the British and Dutch planters planting in 
 
 place of the sugar-cane? 
 
 5. Why do they do that (referring to question 4) ? 
 
 6a. Is an important amount of gold mined in the interior? 
 6b. Is an important amount of gold mined on the coast line 
 
 of the Guianas? 
 7a. Does British Guiana produce the larger amount of gold 
 
 (than the other Guianas) ? 
 7b. Does British Guiana produce the smaller amount of gold 
 
 (than the other Guianas) ? 
 
 8. Mention the names of the chief towns of British Guiana. 
 
 9. To what do those towns owe their importance? 
 
 loa. Is the cultivation of the sugar-cane confined almost wholly 
 
 to a narrow coast line? 
 lob. Is the cultivation of the sugar-cane confined in the interior 
 
 of the Guianas? 
 
 11. What products are exported from British Guiana to Great 
 
 Britain and the U. S. A.? 
 
 12. What things are exported from French Guiana? 
 
 133. Isn't French Guiana less developed than the other Guianas? 
 I3b. Isn't French Guiana more developed than the other 
 Guianas (other colonies of the Guianas) ? 
 
 14. What things are imported from Great Britain and the 
 
 United States to British Guiana? 
 
 15. What is the commercial center of Dutch Guiana? 
 
A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 185 
 
 i6a. Isn't the trade of Dutch Guiana chiefly confined to the 
 
 Netherlands? 
 i6b. Isn't the trade of Dutch Guiana chiefly confined to the 
 
 U. S. A.? 
 
 17. With what country does French Guiana mainly trade? 
 
 18. What is the chief town or port of French Guiana? 
 
 South America has the shape of a triangle towards the south. Its 
 coast is not so broken as that of North America. In general the 
 surface of South America resembles that of North America. Each 
 has its greatest or primary highland on the west, with lesser high- 
 lands on the east, and a great plain between. The highland which 
 lies along the west coast of South America is known as the Andes 
 highland, or simply the Andes. It is not nearly so wide as the 
 Rocky mountain highland, but it has much higher plateaus. Over 
 the eastern part of South America spreads a low but broad plateau, 
 not nearly so high as the Andes. This plateau is mainly in the 
 eastern half of a country called Brazil and is known as the highland 
 of Brazil. The western half of Brazil is part of the Central plain 
 and contains vast forests called selvas. Most of the trees grow in 
 the lowlands along the rivers that form the Amazon system. The 
 Amazon river and its branches drain the largest river basin in the 
 world. The selvas are in this basin. Most of the largest rivers 
 of the Amazon system flow from the Andes highland. The part 
 of the Central plain south of the selvas is grassy and supports mil- 
 lions of cattle and horses. In that land such grassy plains are 
 called pampas. The parts of the Central plain north of the selvas 
 are called ' llanos,' meaning level land. There also the people raise 
 many cattle. 
 
 A. Tell what you know about the surface of South America. (For 
 the Bericht.} 
 
 B. Series of questions for the 'Verhor are as follows: 
 
 1. What is the shape of South America? 
 
 2. Which part of South America is widest? 
 
 3. The coast of Australia is regular, that of North America 
 
 is irregular. How is the coast of South America? 
 33. Is the coast of South America less irregular than that of 
 
 North America? 
 3b. Is the coast of South America as irregular as that of 
 
 North America? 
 
 4. Towards what direction does South America taper? 
 
 5. In what part of the country does a great plain of South 
 
 America lie? 
 
 6. Along what coast of South America does the primary or 
 
 greatest highlands He? 
 
 7. What is the name of that primary (or greatest) highland? 
 
 8. Compare the height of that primary highland of South 
 
 America with that of the Rocky Mountain highland. 
 8a. Has not that primary highland much higher plateaus than 
 
 the Rocky mountain highland? 
 8b. Has not that primary highland much lower plateaus than 
 
 the Rocky mountain highland? 
 o. Compare the width of that primary highland with that 
 
 of the Rocky mountain highland. 
 9a. Is that primary highland of South America narrower than 
 
 the Rocky mountain highland? 
 gib. Is that primary highland of South America as wide as 
 
 the Rocky mountain highland? 
 
l86 A STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 
 10. Over what part of South America does a low but broad 
 
 highland (or plateau) spread? 
 
 11. What is the name of that low but broad highland? 
 
 12. Why is it so called? 
 
 13. South America has highlands and lowlands. Where do 
 
 most of trees grow there? 
 133. Do not most of the trees in South America grow on the 
 
 lowlands ? 
 I3b. Do not most of the trees in South America grow on 
 
 the highlands? 
 
 14. How large is the Amazon river basin compared with the 
 
 other rivers in the world? 
 
 15. From what highland do most of the largest rivers of the 
 
 Amazon system flow? 
 
 16. What country has a surface very similar to that of South 
 
 America? 
 i6a. Does the surface of South America differ from that of 
 
 North America? 
 i6b. Does the surface of South America resemble that of 
 
 North America? 
 
 17. Locate the grassy plains of South America. 
 
 18. What is the grassy plain of South America called? 
 
 19. In what regions are most of the cattle raised in South 
 
 America? 
 ipa. Do the people of South America raise many cattle on 
 
 the plain? 
 ipb. Do the people of South America raise many cattle on 
 
 the highland? 
 
 20. What part of South America is called 'llanos?' 
 
 21. What does 'llanos' mean? 
 
 2ia. Does not 'llanos' mean highland? 
 2ib. Does not 'llanos' mean level land? 
 
 22. What are the vast forests in Brazil of S. A. called? 
 
 23. In what river basin are those vast forests? 
 
 24. Which half of Brazil is a part of the central plain? 
 243. Is the western half of Brazil a part of the central plain? 
 24b. Is the eastern half of Brazil a part of the central plain 
 
 (of South America) ? 
 
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