Examining the role of questioning in supporting explorative participation among prospective mathematics teachers

Emre Akdoğan E., Gürbüz F. N.

Asian Journal for Mathematics Education, 2026 (Scopus)

Abstract

This study explores how questioning fosters explorative participation in prospective mathematics teacher (PMT) education, drawing on commognitive and sociocultural perspectives that frame discourse as central to mathematical learning. Situated in a Basic Mathematical Concepts course for senior PMTs at a Turkish university, the study examines classroom interactions related to equations and inequalities. Based on classroom observations of 20 participants, the analysis was conducted in two phases: first, identifying instances of explorative participation, and second, characterizing the forms and functions of both lecturer and student generated questioning. The findings reveal that the lecturer deliberately avoided presenting definitions directly, instead using strategic questioning to elicit analyzing, justifying, and forming-narrative processes from the students. These questioning practices structured students’ engagement by expanding, refining, and stabilizing mathematical meanings. The results further show that explorative participation is not solely a product of dialogic interaction but is systematically mediated through differentiated questioning practices. While lecturer-generated questions orchestrated a broad range of epistemic functions, student-generated questions remained more limited, indicating an asymmetry in the development of mathematical discourse practices. Overall, the study reconceptualizes explorative participation as a multi-layered commognitive process and highlights questioning as a central mechanism for supporting the co-construction of mathematical discourse in teacher education.