QUESTIONING AS A MEDIATION TOOL FOR COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN EARLY SCIENCE TEACHING

In this article are presented the results of an empirical study, which tried to find the explanation for the relatively unsatisfactory results of Slovene pupils in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science study (TIMSS) in the area of early natural science. Questions from teachers and those from children in the process of teaching the school subject of Environmental Studies in the first grade of nine-year primary school were examined and also the communication that the teacher, as a mediator of a learning process, initiates with children. More precisely: the quantity and quality of teachers', and consequently also of children's questions. 18 teaching hours in two elementary schools were observed and recorded with the defined protocol during the teaching of three thematic topics. The results show that teachers ask too many questions and that those questions are at lower taxonomic levels. The research also showed that children seldom ask questions and that these are also generally at lower taxonomic levels. These types of questions cannot be used as a mediation tool and consequently do not stimulate the cognitive processes of pupils.