TEACHER QUESTIONING BEHAVIOUR AND STUDENT PARTICIPATION IN MATHEMATICS CLASSES IN SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN BOTSWANA

Student participation remains a critical component of teaching in an attempt to improve student learning and achievement. With declining quality of student performance in National examinations at school level, consistent attempts to evaluate teachers' behaviour in classrooms are imperative. This study examined the level of student participation in mathematics lessons at senior secondary school level. The investigation also included how teacher questioning behaviour influences student participation with emphasis on how teachers distributed the questions amongst the students and the level of difficulty of the verbal questions asked in mathematics classes. A random sample of 53 teachers of mathematics and 306 students from private and public senior secondary schools was used. Data were analysed using population t test on a single mean, independent t test and one way ANOVA. The results suggest that there is high level of student participation in mathematics lessons at senior secondary school level. Furthermore the study revealed that high level of question difficulty as perceived by students as well as fair and equitable distribution of questions tended to promote student participation.