Beyond the Sponge Model: Encouraging Students' Questioning Skills in Abnormal Psychology

Abstract

Much of education emphasizes an “answers-by-the-experts” and “student-as-sponge” orientation, thereby failing to encourage students' questioning behavior, an essential component of critical thinking. We argue that educators should provide students with explicit training in asking critical questions. We describe such a training strategy taught in 2 recent abnormal psychology courses. At the beginning of both courses, students completed a pretest for which they asked questions after reading an essay. On an identical posttest at the end of the courses, students asked significantly more questions overall and particularly asked significantly more critical evaluation questions. The results support the promise of using explicit questioning training in promoting the evaluative aspects of critical thinking.