A topic in teaching science
Socratic dialogue is a teaching method where the teacher leads the learner to new knowledge by taking them through a sequence of questions. The method relies on he learner already knowing the answers to the questions, or being able to work out the answers (often because they become clear 'in the light of' the sequence of previous questions and answers).
Socratic?
This was supposedly a method use by the Philosopher Socrates, according to his pupil and successor Plato: thus the term 'Socratic' method.
"…Plato (380 BCE) gives an account of how, by responding to Socrates’ carefully sequenced questions, an uneducated slave boy is able to demonstrate knowledge of a geometric idea he had previously never been exposed to. …
Vygotsky’s theory… would suggest the slave was operating in the ZPD supported by the structure offered by Socrates’s (‘Socratic’) questioning, and so was able to learn a new scheme mediated through language and other symbol systems (in this case, a geometric construction in the form of a diagram). From a constructivist perspective, the slave had the necessary prerequisite knowledge, and the required cognitive skills, to develop the new conceptual scheme. However, he had no reason to seek the new knowledge, and would likely not have readily spotted how his existing knowledge could be organised in a new way. Socrates both motivated the slave to think about geometry (as he was expected to be polite and respectful, and so to humour his master’s guest) and structured his thinking along a particular path to facilitate the construction of new knowledge." (Taber, 2018: 21)
Leading questions in research interviews
Whilst Socratic questioning is meant to offer leading questions in teaching, research interviews to explore student thinking often comprises of sequences of probing linked questions, and may act as a form of Socratic questioning. The very act of being interviewed can therefore act as a learning experience, and the interviewee may reveal knowledge she did not have at the outset of the interview. So such interviews, even if intended to be naturalistic, are inevitably somewhat interventionist and they direct the participants thinking. (This might be considered a problem in 'nomothetic' research which seeks to identify population norms and patterns. Otherwise, that participants may learn from interviews, should not be seen as inherently problematic – especially if teachers interview their students for diagnostic/formative assessment.)
(For example, see 'Single bonds are different to covalent bonds')
(For example, see 'Higher resistance means less current for the same voltage – but how does that relate to the formula?')
(For example, see 'Particles in ice and water have different characteristics')
Source cited:
- Taber, K. S. (2018). Scaffolding learning: principles for effective teaching and the design of classroom resources. In M. Abend (Ed.), Effective Teaching and Learning: Perspectives, strategies and implementation (pp. 1-43). New York: Nova Science Publishers. [Read the author’s manuscript version]
