CS MS students asking questions to which they already know the answers in large lectures

[Man_About_Town]

I wanted to crowd-source to see if this is a problem at my institution or everywhere. I am a PhD student completing CS coursework, and with COVID all of my classes are online like everyone else. These courses are usually 200+ students and a mix of mostly MS students with some PhD students. I am not sure if students are more likely to ask questions because of the online format, but the MS students in the class (small number of PhD students so I know who they all are) frequently interrupt the professor to ask questions to which they clearly already know the answer. I briefly reviewed some literature and this is a pseudopathologic thing that young children do in order to show adults they are smart and know things. But it is so blatantly obvious that these students already know the answer, as their question is phrased as "Professor, isn't X so because Y?" It is only the MS students that do this. Is this common everywhere?

 

 

Edited September 27, 2020 by Man_About_Town