I'm teaching an online lab (to accompany an in-person course) to undergrads in their 3rd or 4th year of an engineering curriculum this semester. The aim of the lab is not to teach them any particular technical skills. It's only meant to supplement the content of the course by exposing them to some more advanced concepts in a hands-on way. The lab itself is the means, not the goal.
So beyond a single "orientation" lab, they don't get a whole lot of training in debugging things that go wrong in the lab, and I don't expect them to become advanced users of the lab infrastructure. They're encouraged to post questions on a course forum if they have trouble running a lab exercise, and I answer their questions there.
Having said that, some students post questions that would be closed immediately on a Stack Exchange site for lack of detail, and for good reason. Questions like:
I can't log in to the website, please help.
or
When I run the experiment, it gives me an error. Can somebody help me???
or
I can't see the results of the experiment.
with no further details. These are perfectly reasonable things to ask about, but the student hasn't even attempted to give me any details as to what went wrong. In the "real world," people that ask questions like this won't usually get help.
Since I operate the computing infrastructure for the lab, I can actually find out the specifics of what happened by checking the student's username against the server logs. So I can give them an answer even if they ask a really incomplete question (e.g., I can check the server logs and see that their experiment failed because they mistyped a command).
But I'm not sure if I should answer their questions (because I can, and I want to encourage them to ask questions if they have trouble), or if I should try to train them to ask better questions.
On the one hand: it seems like I am doing them a disservice by not teaching them how to ask for help properly.
On the other hand: students are (legitimately) frustrated when they're using infrastructure they haven't been extensively trained in, and they can't get it to work. If I try to get them to ask better questions, they'll feel like I'm being deliberately unhelpful and making them jump through hoops to get an answer to their question. (I know this because that's been their reaction the few times I tried this.) They may stop asking questions and just give up on the lab exercises.
Should I risk the actual course goal (delivering content to the students) in favor of a general educational goal (teaching them how to ask questions)?
Is there a way to train students to ask better questions without making them feel like I'm not helping them?
Just to clarify: I already provide answers to commonly asked questions, and a lot of material to help students formulate better questions before they ask. Some students ignore that material and ask very non-specific questions anyways. My question is how to address this once they've asked the question: should I walk them through the process of reformulating it before I answer? Is there a way to do so without frustrating them further?
Answer
Being a student myself I know how frustrating it can be to work with technics or facilities you don't know enough about. Sometimes this means asking fully detailed questions can be tricky.
But there is a difference between a student that tries to ask a question to get help with their problem, and one that just declares that they have a problem and thinks it is another persons business to deal with it. What you posted above is the latter. They have encountered a problem and instead of trying to get help to solve it they try to make you solve it. That might even be clever, because as long as you DO solve the problem, they get maximum effect with a minimum of effort. And as soon as students realise that, even the good students won't bother to read your FAQs anymore, because it is a waste of time, when you obviously can identify and solve a problem as soon as they write "Help, I have a problem."
Additionally you have to keep in mind, that as a student you often take from the experience that people don't respond to your question of, "can anyone help me" as indicating that this person is just checking, whether someone responds. It is not meant to be a question, but a phrase to start a communication about the problem. That is something adapted from face to face communication. In the real world you don't go to people and start with a 5 minute monologue to your problem, you ask "Hey would you help me?" Wait for a "Sure what is it." And than give your monologue.
So what I read above is not a question it is the reflex of a student to a problem. Before even thinking they are posting (in my generation a common reflex in every situation - we are the tldr - too long didn't read generation). If I were you I would respond with a reflex. Just answer with a standard answer that explains, that you need more detail to help. Students who get frustrated by this are already frustrated and beyond your reach. If on the other hand a student tried to ask a proper question and just failed, you should provide the answer and give a hint on how his question could have been better.
How frustrated your student will be is less a question of what you respond, than of how you respond. "I could solve your problem, but I wont because of your stupid question" is of course frustrating. But even in a standard answer you can demonstrate that you care, that you take the other person and his time serious, that you would like to help and that you need more information in order to do so. I would try to phrase it, but as you undoubtedly realised I'm not a native English speaker, so I leave that to you. Just don't advertise the fact that you are trying to teach them something.
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