Asking the Right Questions

In the 2004 movie I, Robot; detective Del Spooner investigates the death of Dr. Alfred Lanning by speaking to an A.I. incarnation of the deceased. You might think that the A.I. is some archaic early version that doesn’t know very much because when queried, Lanning’s hologram often replies: “My responses are limited. You must ask the right questions.” This is frustrating if you are the questioner.

I wonder how students would respond if I imitated Lanning’s hologram. Most of my students seem nervous about asking questions; there is often a self-effacing preface to the question. I’ve always encouraged students to ask questions as much as possible since it helps them to learn, and it helps me gauge where they might be confused. Sometimes my response is a clarification; sometimes I ask a question in return to sharpen a particular point. I’ve never said “That’s the wrong question.”

While there might not be any ‘wrong’ questions per se, quality may vary – some questions are better than others. I’ve been pondering this issue in relationship to what it means to learn a particular subject area. As an academic adviser, I regularly chat with my students about how their classes are going. One point I try to emphasize: Learning a subject area is about how to ask good questions about that field. Instead, students are more often concerned with finding the right answers. However, what’s more important at the tertiary level is asking the right questions.

So perhaps Dr. Lanning’s seeming unhelpfulness is a way to focus on what’s important: learning how to ask the right questions! A good question should lead to another good question as one deepens down the rabbit hole. What might such a series of questions be in my field?

What is chemistry?

A fundamental question. What makes chemistry distinct from biology or physics? My students have tackled the issue of definitions – and oh, what a tangle it is! While chemistry broadly deals with the interaction of matter, the conceptual crux of chemistry is relating these interactions down to the tiny scale of molecules. We’re talking nanometers here. It doesn’t help that we cannot see anything so small; we have to use models, analogies, and mental pictures, to help us understand what’s going on. There are small molecules, there are big molecules, but fundamentally chemistry is about molecules interacting with each other. That leads to the next question.

What is a molecule?

A molecule is two or more atoms ‘bonded’ together in a specific way. These connections between atoms lead to a three-dimensional structure that has specific properties. Chemistry takes place when molecules exchange atomic partners by breaking existing chemical bonds and making new ones. Bond-making and bond-breaking are at the heart of chemistry. The type of exchange that takes place is dependent on the overall structure of the molecule and also its specific bond connections. But this begs the question of what causes the exchange of atoms to occur.

What controls bond-making and bond-breaking?

Fundamentally this has to do with energy. But it’s tricky because energy is a slippery concept: We don’t really know what it is, but we can count it! I’ve rearranged my introductory chemistry course to center on the bond energy curve. We start with the generic picture of a chemical bond and then burrow our way down to what makes a chemical bond weaker or stronger. Later we talk about collisions between molecules and the sources of energy needed to break chemical bonds and start a chemical reaction.

That about sums up the first year of college chemistry. We build upon this foundation in subsequent courses. Or at least I hope we do so systematically. Folks in my department talk to each other regularly, and I think I have a good sense of what goes on in other classes (including ones I don’t teach) so that I can make forward-looking connections in my general chemistry course. In my physical chemistry courses, I can make backward-looking connections: “Remember when you saw X in G-Chem?” (Many students don’t remember, so reminding them often is very necessary.) “Now we can delve into why X…” then segues into the topic of the day.

I’ve started asking my physical chemistry students to write mock exam questions in an effort to help them prepare for the exam. I think there was a payoff to students who put in the effort to write good questions, but I haven’t assessed this systematically. I need to consider how to get students to pose those important fundamental conceptual questions. Maybe one test is that if the question leads to a very limited response – yes, no, maybe so – then perhaps it’s not a very good question, at least for fundamental learning rather than simple clarification. In that sense, Lanning’s canned statement is a little deeper than at first glance. “My responses are limited.” The sign of a less useful question perhaps? It requires more work to ask the right questions.