Wait-Time

There are two types of Wait-Times. Wait-Time 1 refers to the time a teacher allows to go by after s/he has presented a question and before students begin to speak in response to the question. Wait-Time 2 refers to the amount of time a teacher waits after a students ceases responding and before the teacher resumes speaking.

Wait-Times are important to consider when discussing questioning in the classroom. If a wait-time is too short then students will not have enough time to digest what the teacher has asked nor will he have enough time to respond fully. This will not only frustrate the respondent, but it will also take away from the learning opportunity the rest of the class can experience as a community of learning develops.

Research has demonstrated a positive relationship between the amount of content presented and student achievevement. It is for this reason that teachers are encouraged to teach at a relatively quick pace. After all, the faster the teachers progress through the material, the more material will be covered. According to the research, logic would dictate that this would yield greater student acheievement. Wait-Time, though is a critical component to classroom learning and must be taken into consideration when designing instruction. Research has demonstrated that:

• Teachers' Wait-Times are, on average, one second or less.
• Students who are perceived as weak learners are given less Wait-Time than the students teachers consider more able.
• For lower cognitive questions, a Wait-Time of three seconds is positively related to acheievement, with less success resulting from shorter Wait-Times.
• Higher cognitive questions seem to have no Wait-Time threshold; the more the teachers is willing to wait, the more engaged the students become resulting in students' increased performance.
• An increased Wait-Time of at least three seconds is positively related to these student outcomes:

  1. improvements in achievement
  2. improvement in information retention
  3. increases in numbers of higher cognitive responses by students
  4. increases in length of student-responses
  5. increases in numbers of unsolicited responses
  6. decreases in students' failure to respond
  7. increase in amount of supporting evidence students provide 
  8. increases in participation by students who do not participate when Wait-Time is under three seconds
  9. increases in variety of responses offered by students
  10. decreases in student interruptions
  11. increases in student-student interaction
  12. increases in student-generated questions

A Wait-Time beyond three seconds is related to the following teacher outcomes:

  1. increased flexibility of teacher responses, with teachers listening more and engaging more in classroom discussions
  2. increases in teacher expectations of slower students 
  3. greater variety of questions asked by teachers
  4. Increase in number of higher cognitive questions asked by teachers

The more complex cognitive processes that are required when students respond to higher cognitive questions call for and produce longer Wait-Times. A longer Wait-Time results in teachers and students conducting classroom activities on higher cognitive levels. In a sense, longer Wait-Times and the use of higher cognitive questions 'cause' each other.

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