Extended Wait Time and University Student Achievement

Abstract

Two experiments examined the effects of extending the pauses between teacher questions and naming a student, wait time I. Although articles addressing both preservice and practicing teachers admonish them to extend these pauses to be more effective questioners, comparisons of wait times of 1 s with 3 s, and 3 s with 6 s, detected no significant advantage for extended wait times when university students answered either low-level knowledge questions or higher level application and synthesis questions. Contrary to predictions based upon prior research with younger students, extending wait time to 6 s actually lowered higher level cognitive achievement. The findings are discussed in relationship to those of prior studies examining extended wait time and an information processing model of learning.