Inquiry questions
What is the purpose of inquiry questions? What is important to know
about developing inquiry questions in an IDU?
Purpose of a unit's inquiry questions
The purpose of inquiry questions in all MYP units is to guide a scaffolded set of inquiries
that can support students in developing their understanding the unit’s statement of
inquiry.
"Teachers of the disciplines participating in an interdisciplinary unit can collaboratively
develop a set of shared, transferable, factual, conceptual and debatable questions that
can be explored from the unique perspective of each discipline, and/or from a
synthesized interdisciplinary perspective.
Questions can be developed that help students inquire into each of the elements
expressed in the statement [of inquiry]: the concepts, the relationship between the
concepts, the context and/or the relationship between the conceptual understanding
and the global context exploration." - Interdisciplinary teaching and learning in the MYP
Details to remember
• The inquiry questions in an interdisciplinary unit should:
o be drawn from and inspired by the statement of inquiry
o reference at least one of the unit’s concepts and/or the
global context exploration
o guide inquiries into the unit’s concepts, the relationships
between the concepts and the global context exploration
o be explorable by both/all participating subjects (questions
that are only explorable by one of participating subjects
should be identified in the applicable description of the
disciplinary 'learning experiences')
o be used as prompts for inquiry-based learning experiences
during the learning processes
• Teachers need to develop a minimum of one question in each
question type (factual, conceptual, debatable).
o Factual inquiry questions encourage recall and
comprehension and lead to answers that are supported by
evidence. These questions can be used to explore the
meaning of the concepts, context and other terminology
used in the statement of inquiry. Most often, factual
questions begin with 'What…'.
o Conceptual inquiry questions encourage analysis and
application, and do not lead students to a particular
viewpoint or answer. These questions can prompt deeper
inquiry into the key and related concepts, the relationships
that exist between the concepts, and between the
concepts and the contextual exploration. Often, conceptual
questions begin with 'How...' or 'Why…'.
o Debatable inquiry questions encourage synthesis and
evaluation. They require students to take a position and/or
engage in discussion or debate involving at least one of
the concepts included in the statement of inquiry and
possibly the global context exploration. It is important that
debatable questions are complex and have more than one
plausible answer. These questions might begin with
question starters such as 'Could...', 'Should…' or 'To what
extent…'.
• In the MYP, developing 'lines of inquiry' is optional. If
included, a line of inquiry:
o defines the content-based scope of the associated inquiry
question
o is written as a statement or phrase
• Questions that reference specific unit content from the
participating subjects are also encouraged. Content-based
questions should be identified in the description of the applicable
disciplinary learning process in terms of when/how the questions
are used to drive content-based learning experiences (not in the
shared 'Inquiry questions' section of the unit plan).
Example
In this guide, a language and literature and sciences interdisciplinary unit is used to
illustrate one example of what each unit plan section could look like using the provided
guidance. Below is the inquiry questions section of that unit.
Check the inquiry questions through the descriptors (shown below) from the IB
publication Evaluating MYP interdisciplinary unit plans.
• Do the inquiry questions align with the characteristics of 'factual',
'conceptual' and 'debatable' questions?
• Do all of the inquiry questions allow students to make
connections between the participating subjects? (i.e. Are the
questions explorable by both participating subjects?)
• Could the inquiry questions support students in exploring the
unit’s concepts and global context exploration from the unique
and combined perspectives of each participating subject?
• Could the inquiry questions provide a scaffolded set of entry
points into the unit’s subject matter/topics?
• Could the inquiry questions prompt appropriately complex
inquiries that could support students in developing critical and
creative thinking needed for synthesizing the perspectives of the
participating subjects?
• Can the inquiry questions prompt learning experiences that
prepare students for the summative assessment tasks?
