Diagnostic Questions

Overview

Diagnostic Questioning is when questions are asked to determine student understanding. It is diagnostic as it can then be used to inform your planning and future teaching.

Diagnostic Questioning is a great method to use at any stage of a lesson to assess where your learners are; intervene and address any issues; and then move forward. It can be used in different forms: simple Q and A, google forms, Quizziz, and Quizlet.

Reading

'Making Good Progress' is based on assessment rather than retrieval but is a great starting point for tips on how to create multiple choice quizzes that work!

Examples

Anecdote from Alex:

'In my lessons I often use Google Forms as a starter and form of diagnostic questioning. Each form contains a maximum of 6 multiple choice questions for the students to answer. These are often based on the previous lesson but I do also include a final question based on a previous topic (see spaced practice). As the students complete the quiz, I watch the results come in live on my overview spreadsheet. I can see their overall total score, but more importantly I can also see which questions they got wrong. I then move around the room having conversations with each student addressing any issues or misconceptions.

Students will then make a note of which questions they got wrong by writing the correct answer as a full sentence in the back of their book, forming a list of specific revision points for future assessments.'

Resources

Here is an example of a google form used with students in a lesson.

You can write your own questions or take them from an external exam. Multiple choice questions work best for this.

In settings you can change the form into a quiz. You can then click on 'answer key' and select the correct answer. This allows students to receive instant feedback once they submit their answers.

You can add positive feedback for each answer. This could also include a challenging question or link to a video to further the students learning.

You can also add hints and tips to incorrect answers to encourage students to remember key points. This could also include a video or slides to support the learning.

After collecting the responses, the Google Form automatically generates a summary or overview for you. This has proved very useful for afl within a lesson. Within a couple of seconds you can see how well a topic or text or idea has been grasped.

You can then click on individual learners to identify any misconceptions or errors that they have made. This means you can then correct or address these straight away, rather than waiting until the next lesson or the next time you mark their books!

Learners, as well as getting immediate feedback due to the forms being self marking, can also keep and refer back to this.

Below are some more examples from other subject areas. Between the four of us, we have used this in Maths, Science, English, Humanities and PSD (Personal Social Development - tutor time).

Used in English to help learners recall key events in the first half of 'Of Mice and Men'.

Used in English to help learners recall from memory what they had learned about poetry techniques.

Used in English to assess how well Year 11 learner's understood the exam rubric. They wrote their own 'success criteria' for the question in the exam and then had to match it to the statements from the actual mark scheme (re-written in student speak!)

Side Note!

Google Forms have other uses as well as for diagnostic questions and retrieval. They can also be used for learner reflection and if you use the DocAppender extension they can even be used to help you mark assessments or essays in a more efficient manner!

Links to these examples below:

diagnosticquestions.com and eedi.co.uk in Maths

These websites have multiple choice questions and quizzes from Maths, Science and Computing (more subjects are being added all the time). It has incredibly powerful data analytics than can tell your learners exactly what they need to practise based on their results. Once learners become used to using this platform they can build in their own retrieval practice into their revision and home learning.

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