Topic

Teacher questioning is a central didactic practice through which teaching-learning relations are organized, mediated, and rendered visible in instructional interactions (Uştuk & Hu, 2024). Within didactic research, questioning has been widely examined in face-to-face and whole-class contexts, often as a means of structuring participation, eliciting understanding, and guiding learning processes. However, comparatively little is known about how questioning operates in online one-on-one instruction, where interaction is highly individualized, temporally compressed, and technologically mediated (Eleazar & Straub, 2012; Hrastinski et al, 2021; Jopling, 2011).

This gap is particularly significant in the context of private supplementary tutoring (Bray, 2018; 2022), where one-on-one synchronous lessons have become a dominant format. In such settings, questioning is not merely a pedagogical technique but a primary means through which teaching unfolds, and learning opportunities are constructed. This study, therefore, investigates how online EFL tutors deploy questioning strategies in synchronous one-on-one sessions and how these strategies shape tutor–student interaction.

Research Questions

The study addresses the following research questions:

1. What are the distributional patterns of question openness, question types, and question cognitive depth in one-on-one synchronous online EFL tutoring sessions?
2. How are these questioning features associated with student response length, complexity, correctness, and cognitive level?
3. Why do different types and forms of tutor questions lead to different kinds of student responses?
4. Why do online EFL tutors adopt the questioning practices observed during the one-on-one session?

Objectives

The primary objective of this research is to provide a multi-layered understanding of questioning as a didactic practice in online one-on-one EFL teaching.

Specifically, this study aims to: (a) systematically document observable questioning practices in online one-on-one EFL instruction; (b) identify empirical tendencies linking questioning features to student response characteristics; and (c) explain how and why questioning operates in digitally mediated, individualized teaching contexts.

Rather than proposing an entirely new concept of questioning, the study seeks to refine existing didactic understandings by examining how established questioning constructs operate under one-on-one online conditions. In doing so, it extends didactic research on questioning beyond traditional classroom formats and contributes to a more context-sensitive theorization of instructional interaction.

Conceptual and Theoretical Framework

The study adopts Critical Realism (CR) as philosophical grounding, which enables a stratified analysis of pedagogical phenomena across the empirical, actual, and real domains (Mukumbang, 2023). Through this lens, observable tutor questioning practices constitute the empirical basis of analysis, while recurring interactional patterns identified across tutoring sessions indicate regularities at the actual level of instructional practice. The real layer is addressed through retroductive inference: from repeated interactional solutions to similar contingencies, the study infers practice-based mechanisms shaped by institutional arrangements, technological constraints, and didactic pacing demands. Critical Realism thus informs the study's progression from surface-level patterns to deeper structural explanations of tutor questioning strategies.

Analytically, the study draws on established classifications of teacher questioning, including distinctions in question openness (Blosser, 2000; Hargreaves, 1984), functional types (Farrell, 2009; Ellis, 1994; Long & Sato, 1983), and cognitive demand (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). These constructs are analyzed descriptively and statistically using established didactic frameworks, such as the initiation–response–follow–up (IRF) cycle. Critical Realism is then used at the explanatory stage to structure interpretation across three analytical levels: observable practices, recurring interactional tendencies, and inferred instructional mechanisms, through retroductive reasoning (Nichol et al, 2023). In this way, the study aligns with contemporary didactic theory while offering a contextual re-theorization of questioning in individualized online instruction.

This study adopts a mixed-methods design (Creswell, 2020; Dörnyei, 2007), combining quantitative classroom discourse analysis with qualitative explanatory inquiry. The data consist of 30 video-recorded one-on-one synchronous online EFL tutoring sessions conducted in China. Each session lasts approximately one hour, comprising nearly 300 turns of tutor-student interaction and 200 teacher questions on average, capturing the essence of how tutors enhance engagement through diverse questioning techniques. Tutor questions were identified as discrete analytical units based on predefined operational criteria and coded using a multi-dimensional framework encompassing: (1) question openness (closed, semi-open, open); (2) functional question type (e.g. echoic, epistemic); and (3) cognitive depth (lower and higher order). Student responses following each tutor question were coded for response language choices, linguistic complexity, correctness, and cognitive level. These response features were not treated as direct measures of learning outcomes but as interactional indicators of learning-related engagement and cognitive orientation. To address RQ1, frequency counts and proportional analyses were conducted to establish the distributional patterns of tutor questioning practices. To address RQ2, statistical association analyses, including correlation tests and multivariate models, were employed to examine relationships between questioning features and student response characteristics. RQ3 and RQ4 were addressed through a combined conversation-analysis and discourse-analysis approaches to instructional interaction. Analytically, the study drew on conversation analysis to conduct fine-grained, turn-by-turn examination of extended IRF sequences, focusing on how tutor questions were sequentially positioned, how students oriented to them in their responses, and how tutors subsequently shaped interaction through confirmation, reformulation, scaffolding, or re-questioning. Rather than relying on tutor self-reports, the explanatory analysis focused on identifying practice-based instructional mechanisms through systematic examination of these recurring interactional patterns. Drawing on the preceding conversation-analytic and discourse-analytic findings, specific interactional contingencies, such as student hesitation, minimal or incorrect responses, and disruptions to task progression, were identified based on observable sequential features, including pauses, repair initiations, and tutor follow-up moves. These contingencies were then examined across episodes to trace how tutors recurrently responded to similar interactional problems through comparable questioning practices, such as reformulating questions, narrowing question scope, or deploying scaffolded re-questioning sequences. On this basis, explanatory mechanisms were inferred retroductively from the repeated use of similar interactional solutions under comparable instructional conditions, rather than from tutors’ articulated beliefs or intentions. This explanatory move is informed by a Critical Realist view of causation, in which instructional mechanisms may be inferred from recurring practices and contextual conditions.

The study demonstrates that questioning practices in one-on-one synchronous online EFL tutoring are characterized by a predominance of closed and lower-order questions, alongside the selective deployment of open and cognitively demanding questions in specific instructional moments. Quantitative analyses are anticipated to reveal systematic associations between question openness and cognitive depth and students’ response length, complexity, and cognitive level, indicating recurring patterns in how instructional interaction unfolds in this highly individualized setting. Beyond these empirical regularities, the study shows that the effects of tutor questioning are mediated by interactional dynamics distinctive to one-on-one online instruction. These include rapid turn-taking, sustained tutor control over topic progression, and the use of real-time scaffolding to maintain instructional flow. Through analysis of interactional episodes, the study identifies how tutors’ questioning practices respond to immediate contingencies of the interaction, such as student hesitation, task demands, and the need to advance instructional objectives within limited time frames. Importantly, the explanation of why particular questioning practices recur is grounded in practice-based and structurally inferred mechanisms, rather than tutors’ self-reported beliefs or intentions. The findings suggest that questioning practices are shaped by the didactic logic embedded in one-on-one online instruction itself, including the structural features of synchronous platforms, the individualized nature of tutor–student relations, and the instructional demands of maintaining engagement and task progression. By integrating these findings within a Critical Realist explanatory framework, the study contributes to didactics by offering a multi-layered account of questioning as a pedagogical practice in digitally mediated, individualized learning environments. It shows how observable questioning practices give rise to recurring interactional tendencies, which can be explained by underlying instructional and structural mechanisms. The study thus provides conceptually transferable insights for didactic research on teaching and learning beyond language education, particularly in contexts of online tutoring, mentoring, and other forms of individualized instruction.

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