 The question method is one of the more powerful study strategies that you can employ to enhance your learning. Basically, the question method uses the art and science of asking questions to help guide your learning. In some ways, though not in all ways, your textbooks, your lectures, and your courses are collections of answers to questions that have been asked by scholars and researchers in that field, stripped of the originating questions. The question method involves reinserting your own self-generated questions back into that material. This is a very powerful elaboration strategy. It is also a very powerful rehearsal strategy because it allows you to test yourself with your own self-generated questions after you first read the material. Let me give you an example of how you might use this method with a lecture note. First, draw a line down the left-hand margin of your page, about a third of the distance from the left edge. Take your notes as you normally would on the right-hand side. After the lecture is over, optimally within 24 hours, treat your notes as if they were answers to questions and write those questions in the margin of the page. Do this for every major concept. If you cannot come up with a question, it is a hint that you do not understand that material clearly and perhaps you need to go back to the textbook or have a discussion with your TA. You can also use the question method with your textbook. Simply underline or highlight the answers to the questions that you find and write the questions down in the margin of the text. If there is no margin there, don't worry, you can use a post-it note and write the question onto the post-it note and cover the answer. And of course, later on, you can test yourself with your own questions. There is another powerful reason to use the question method and that is you can use the kinds of questions that you ask to control the depth and quality of your learning. In the question method, we have broken down questions into four levels of sophistication. Level one questions are summary or definition questions. These questions are usually answered with a very specific, exact answer that is either totally correct or totally incorrect. Level two questions are more sophisticated. They ask about relationships, differences, and similarities between concepts and ideas. Level three is even more sophisticated than level two and asks predictive hypothetical or application questions. Finally, level four questions are critically analytic questions. These questions require that your answers involve some form of judgment on your part. Let me give you an example of each of the four levels from an economics course. A level one question might be, what is the definition of demand? Either you know the answer to this question or you don't. You can either regurgitate the textbook phrases or not. This is the level of rote memorization. A level two question about the same concepts might be, what is the relationship between demand and supply? A level three question would be, if demand increases and supply stays the same, what happens to price and quantity? This requires that you be able to predict based on the relationship what is going to happen. A level four question might be, what is the limitation of demand and supply analysis in predicting major economic indicators? This requires that you evaluate the merits of demand and supply analysis. Memory cannot help you do this. You may notice something about these three levels of questions and that is that they nest within each other. For example, you can't really answer the question about what happens when demand changes if you don't understand the relationship between demand and supply and you can't understand that relationship if you don't know what demand is in the first place. It says if the level three question contains within it the lower levels. Notice, however, that the reverse is not true. Merely knowing the definition of demand and supply tells you nothing about their relationship and even less about what happens when one changes. These levels in some ways are levels of studying as well. High school tends to focus on level one, but at university there is a shift to the other three levels. This is what professors mean when they say you should understand the material and not just memorize it. You can learn the material at the other three levels. And of course the professor is going to test you with questions from those other three levels. The good news is if your current level of studying is at level one and you need to go to a higher level, simply start asking and looking for answers to questions from the other three levels. When you first start using the question method you might find it difficult to come up with those questions. We've provided you with a list of questions drawn from the four levels that you might want to keep handy if you like this method. Keep in mind this is one of many elaboration strategies, but it is a very powerful strategy and you might want to employ it with some of the other strategies that are included in these workshops.