Asking questions is something we all learn to do as children.  Why is the sky blue Daddy?  How does this work?  If you have children, you are familiar with the routine.

But as we grow older, we tend to ask less frequently.  There are probably many very profound reasons this is the case, and I'm not smart enough to understand them, however I'm certain that we don't ask questions as much as we used to.

In learning, questions are critical.  As a trainer, I ask questions of my students to keep them awake.  I include questions in my e-Learning to check that students are paying attention to the material.  Instructional design colleagues tell me that asking questions between each topic in an online course reinforces the concepts to be learned.  Makes sense to me.

Questions make people think.  Naturally, a question following an e-Learning object should force the students' brains to remember, reconsider, or revisit what it recently processed.  That helps the neuro-electrical magic in the human CPU to form a connection.  That's learning.

An additional way to think of questioning as useful in instructional design is suggested by Will Thalheimer.  He states:

"A different way to prepare learners for future learning is to prime them with questions. In my dissertation research, I included one experiment that I asked college students questions about campus attractions. For example, I asked them what the statue "Alma Mater" was carrying. A week later, I suprised the students by asking them some of the same questions again. The results revealed that simply asking them questions (even when no feedback was provided) improved how much they paid attention to the items on which they were queried. Between the two sets of questions, learners apparently paid attention to the statue in ways they hadn't before. By being asked about an item, the learners were more likely to spend time learning about that item when they encountered those items in their day-to-day walking around."

Therefore, I believe it is wise for e-Learning developers to include more questions at the outset of their courses.  Prime the pump.  Get the subconscious working.  The brain is very powerful, and we understand so little of its functioning.  But it seems clear to me that it must be exercised and challenged to make it more useful.  Our profession could benefit from challenging our students with more questions.

And questions in e-Learning are very easy to implement.  Questions just may be the answer.