Asking questions is vital for learning, yet students seldom exhibit this behavior. Given the increasing presence of online classrooms in tertiary education, it is much needed to examine ways to encourage students to ask questions and increase their engagement. Despite the critical role of asking questions to enhance learning, little is known in research on promoting this behavior. Therefore, in this paper, we empirically tested the effect of nudging – a novel approach in education consisting of subtle interventions to change behavior – in online classrooms in tertiary education on question asking behavior, student engagement, and grades. In Experiment 1 (n = 1011), the teacher's virtual background prompted questions (prompt nudge), while in Experiment 2 (n = 449), the teacher set a goal for the students to ask one question per session (goal-setting nudge). We found a trend towards a positive effect of the prompt nudge on questions, but not on grades. Exploratory analyses revealed this was driven by students who already asked many questions. We found no effect of the goal-setting nudge on any measure, nor any effect in either experiment on student engagement. The findings demonstrate that the prompt nudge can be a possible useful and easy to implement tool to encourage questions in the online classroom.

提出问题对于学习至关重要，但学生很少表现出这种行为。鉴于高等教育中在线课堂的日益增多，非常需要研究鼓励学生提问和提高参与度的方法。尽管提出问题对于增强学习至关重要，但对于促进这种行为的研究却知之甚少。因此，在本文中，我们实证检验了助推——一种新颖的教育方法，包括改变行为的微妙干预——在高等教育在线课堂上对提问行为、学生参与度和成绩的影响。在实验 1 ( n  = 1011) 中，教师的虚拟背景提示问题 ( prompt nudge)，而在实验 2 ( n  = 449) 中，教师为学生设定一个目标，让学生每节课问一个问题 ( goal-setting nudge ) 。我们发现，即时推动对问题产生积极影响，但对成绩却没有影响。探索性分析表明，这是由已经提出了很多问题的学生推动的。我们发现目标设定推动对任何措施都没有影响，也没有发现任何实验对学生参与度有任何影响。研究结果表明，提示提示可能是一种有用且易于实施的工具，可以鼓励在线课堂上提问。