Health Education Strategies: Types of Questions

Three potential types of questions that a teacher might receive from a student in the classroom include:

Personal Questions: These are questions that are personal to you, the teacher.

Examples include: Are you married? What did you do over the weekend? Have you tried marijuana?

These questions may be perceived as inappropriate or very personal depending on the intention of the person asking and/or how the teacher receives the question. If you in fact are recently widowed, the first question may feel challenging to answer. If what you did over the weekend was highly personal, then you might refrain from answering. The first two are really up to teacher discretion, whether you feel comfortable sharing. The third question is digging for information about your personal drug choices and we suggest you refrain from answering questions related to illicit drug use or other behaviors that might be controversial.

Fact-Based: These are questions that are based in facts. They are widely considered true or accurate.

Examples include: Why do people have a uterus? Why is the drinking age 21?

Fact-based questions are usually easier to respond to since you can just share the facts related to the question. Note that if you do not know the answer, do not guess the answer! It is ok to share with students that you do not know the full answer, but will do the research and get back to them. The only caution is the age-appropriateness of the question. Make sure the fact-based question is something appropriate for your students to know. If it isn't, sharing that the question is really for older students and encourage them to talk with a trusted adult, like a parent about the question. For the first example you may just share the function of the uterus is to grow an embryo, fetus and baby. Especially if this is within a promotion of sexual health unit. If it's not related to current themes or units of study, you may need to navigate a transition or ask some clarifying questions. The second question is around a policy or law. Sharing that it is a law (everywhere? in most states? in a few states?), and sharing the actual language of the law and why the law is there to protect someone would be the fact-based components of your answer.

Value-based: A value or belief based question is one that has personal beliefs associated with it. Those beliefs that people in a community are not necessarily in agreement on and the teacher should carefully consider how to answer the question and refrain from expressing their personal opinion. The opposite of value-based beliefs are universal beliefs, such as, Is it wrong to trick, tease or threaten someone? Or, should 16 year olds experiment with alcohol? Most people in our communities would agree it is not ok to trick, tease or threaten someone and answering that way should be appropriate. Most people also agree that teenagers should not be experimenting alcohol and so sharing that opinion should be appropriate. Where it becomes a values-based is when there are many differing beliefs.

Examples: Is it ok to have a needle exchange program in our town? Shouldn't abortion be illegal?

Sometimes value and fact based are intertwined, for example: What is abortion and shouldn't it be illegal? To answer value-based questions, see the Answering Difficult Questions Protocol in the next section of this module.

These questions focus on students curiosity related to their peers, These questions should be affirmed and teachers should answer with factual information and share a range of what is typical.

Slang word questions

These questions feel like shock questions, however, students are often just trying to understand what they have heard. In your response replace slang with medically accurate terms and use facts to respond to the question.

This video from Advocates for Youth provides an overview of the questions noted above and tips for answering difficult questions realtered to sexual health.

Last modified: Monday, 24 January 2022, 12:03 PM