Moral Complexities of Student Question-Asking in Classroom Practice

• Main Authors: Stephen C. Yanchar, Susan P. Gong
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Alberta 2020-12-01
• Series: Phenomenology & Practice
• Online Access: https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/pandpr/index.php/pandpr/article/view/29442

Prior research on student question-asking has primarily been conducted from a cognitive, epistemological standpoint. In contrast, we present a hermeneutic-phenomenological investigation that emphasizes the moral-practical context in which question-asking functions as a situated way of being in the midst of practice. More particularly, we present a hermeneutic study of student question-asking in a graduate seminar on design theory (i.e., a seminar focused on theory and philosophy of design, emphasizing the work of design scholars such as Simon, Cross, Krippendorff, and Lawson). The study offers a unique moral-practical perspective on this commonly studied phenomenon. Our analysis yielded four themes regarding the moral-practical intricacies of question-asking in this setting, with a particular focus on time-related constraints on participation, various types of background understanding, and value-laden expectations that participants encountered in this complex ecology of practice.