Harnessing Student-Generated Questions as a Learning Strategy

The use of student-generated questions (SGQ) is a relatively novel educational strategy that can result in learning gains across diverse student populations and educational settings. This paper examines the effectiveness of three conditions (generation, retrieval, and re-reading) against two categories of question (factual and applied) through a between-subjects study design. After completing one of the three learning conditions: student-generated questions (generation or SGQ) with simultaneous access to content, practiced free recall of the learnt content (retrieval), and re-reading of the study material (re-reading), content learning was evaluated through a final test. Results demonstrate the learning potential of generation and hint at an association between question type and condition, suggesting that SGQ is an effective strategy to boost student learning, with potentially stronger results in specific contexts.