ABSTRACT
Socratic discussion is a specific form of question asking in which the instructor leads the students from the specific case to the general principle or law. The approach is to first deduce general principles from what the students know and then apply those principles to a succession of increasingly complex cases. For disciplines that require familiarity with general principles or laws, this is an efficient and effective form of discussion. For those where the goal is to develop tactics for problem solving, Socratic technique removes the opportunity for students to find their own path to the goal. The main weakness of the Socratic technique is that only through several repetitions do students learn how to develop the questioning pattern on their own. The questioner has to know beforehand where the questions are leading. This endows the technique with a strong instructor-centered quality.
