Are You Asking the Right Questions: The Use of Animated Agents to Teach Learners to Become Better Question Askers

Is it possible to teach a learner to become a better question asker in as little as 25 minutes? It is well documented that the ideal scenario of a curious question asker does not match reality. Students are unspectacular at monitoring their own knowledge deficits and their question generation is both infrequent and unsophisticated. Given that many teachers and school districts do not have the resources to provide individualized question training to students, the current study seeks to explore the benefits of using animated pedagogical agents to teach question asking skills in a relatively short amount of time (approximately 25 minutes). Results revealed a significant difference in the quality of questions generated on the posttest as a function of condition. Results also revealed a significant difference between the two conditions on the posttest scores. Furthermore, results revealed that question training was most beneficial for participants who entered with low prior knowledge. Lastly, certain individual differences were found to be related to question asking and learning.