Why ask why? An analysis of teachers’ why-questions in elementary and middle grade mathematics classrooms

Teacher questioning serves a crucial role in creating classrooms where students’ mathematical reasoning is centered. Generally, why-questions are positioned as powerful tools to probe student thinking and engage students in mathematical argumentation. Yet, in our recent research we found that why-questions did not serve to differentiate traditional classrooms from those with a focus on justification and explanation. In this study, we investigated how linguistically similarly why-questions may operate differently. We leveraged disparate literature bases to frame the ambiguity of why-questions and analyzed a set of 61 lessons representing three school districts and spanning grades four through eight. We found that expected student responses to why-questions ranged from a recalled fact to rich justification depending on a number of contextual features. These differences in why-questions accounted for significant variation in student activity in lessons. We suggest that mathematics teacher educators similarly problematize why-questions in order to maximize their potential.