The document discusses the value and appropriate use of multiple choice questions (MCQs) in assessing history. It addresses the following key points:
- The objectives of history education are to develop students' knowledge, understanding, and skills related to history. MCQs are effective for assessing knowledge but not understanding or skills.
- While MCQs have benefits like efficiency, an overreliance on them can encourage memorization over understanding. To use them well, questions must link to specific learning objectives and have a clearly correct answer.
- To maximize the benefits of MCQs, teachers must have a clear understanding of the knowledge students need to develop understanding and skills. MCQs should assess this prerequisite knowledge, not unnecessary details.
1. THE VALUE OF MCQs IN ASSESSING HISTORY ATIS Social Studies – Iain Davey, May 2016
2. THE VALUE OF MCQs IN ASSESSING HISTORY ATIS Social Studies – Iain Davey, May 2016
OBJECTIVES:
To understand the value of multiple choice questions
(MCQs) in assessing history
To create better MCQs, and to employ them more
thoughtfully and more effectively.
To identify and discuss viable alternatives to MCQs for
use at ATIS.
3. THE VALUE OF MCQs IN ASSESSING HISTORY ATIS Social Studies – Iain Davey, May 2016
STRUCTURE:
• What is the purpose of teaching and studying history?
• How do MCQs help us to achieve those goals?
• What’s the harm in using MCQs? What are the benefits?
• Practically speaking, how can MCQs be used most effectively?
• Discussion – alternatives to MCQs
• Discussion – Practical implications for the way that we teach:
4. THE VALUE OF MCQs IN ASSESSING HISTORY ATIS Social Studies – Iain Davey, May 2016
WHAT’S THE PURPOSE OF TEACHING AND STUDYING HISTORY:
There are three broad outcomes that we should be helping the students to achieve:
knowledge of the past, understanding of the past, and the ability to find about and
discuss these things for them and ourselves as independent learners and thinkers.
Let’s look at each three in a little more detail:
KNOWLEDGE:
Simply put, students need to know some of the basic facts about important events
from the past. What happened, where, when, and who was involved. These facts are
not contentious. The US National History Standards expresses this as:
“Chronological thinking, or the ability to understand time in relation to history.”
It goes on to explain:
“Knowledge of history is the precondition of political intelligence…without
historical knowledge and the inquiry it supports, one cannot move to the
informed, discriminating citizenship essential to the effective participation in
the democratic processes of governance and the fulfilment for all our citizens
of the nation’s democratic ideals.”
The key here is that knowledge is a precondition for moving forward, towards
understanding and critical thinking about society. So knowledge of history is not our
goal, but simply the first step towards achieving our objectives. A means to an end.
5. THE VALUE OF MCQs IN ASSESSING HISTORY ATIS Social Studies – Iain Davey, May 2016
WHAT’S THE PURPOSE OF TEACHING AND STUDYING HISTORY:
There are three broad outcomes that we should be helping the students to achieve:
knowledge of the past, understanding of the past, and the ability to find about and
discuss these things for them and ourselves as independent learners and thinkers.
Let’s look at each three in a little more detail:
KNOWLEDGE:
Simply put, students need to know some of the basic facts about important events
from the past. What happened, where, when, and who was involved. These facts are
not contentious. The US National History Standards expresses this as:
“Chronological thinking, or the ability to understand time in relation to history.”
It goes on to explain:
“Knowledge of history is the precondition of political intelligence…without
historical knowledge and the inquiry it supports, one cannot move to the
informed, discriminating citizenship essential to the effective participation in
the democratic processes of governance and the fulfilment for all our citizens
of the nation’s democratic ideals.”
The key here is that knowledge is a precondition for moving forward, towards
understanding and critical thinking about society. So knowledge of history is not our
goal, but simply the first step towards achieving our objective. A means to an end.
UNDERSTANDING:
Understanding history means several things, but at its core it means to look at the
past and appreciate that there are different views, versions and accounts of the
past. Students need to weigh and interpret these views in terms of historical context
and the author’s perspective. From this reckoning, students will be able to form
defensible opinions of the past, and understand that the past is always changing.
Furthermore, students should begin to recognise cause and effect, and be able to
create an informed narrative of past events. Finally, understanding history means
understanding that people in the past were different to us. Samuel Wineburg
(1999) explains it like this: “…history holds the potential, only partly realized, of
humanising us in ways offered by few other areas of the school’s curriculum...an
understanding of the world’s many cultures can contribute to fostering the kind of
patience, mutual respect and civic courage required in our increasingly pluralistic
society and our increasingly interdependent world.”
6. THE VALUE OF MCQs IN ASSESSING HISTORY ATIS Social Studies – Iain Davey, May 2016
WHAT’S THE PURPOSE OF TEACHING AND STUDYING HISTORY:
There are three broad outcomes that we should be helping the students to achieve:
knowledge of the past, understanding of the past, and the ability to find about and
discuss these things for them and ourselves as independent learners and thinkers.
Let’s look at each three in a little more detail:
KNOWLEDGE:
Simply put, students need to know some of the basic facts about important events
from the past. What happened, where, when, and who was involved. These facts are
not contentious. The US National History Standards expresses this as:
“Chronological thinking, or the ability to understand time in relation to history.”
It goes on to explain:
“Knowledge of history is the precondition of political intelligence…without
historical knowledge and the inquiry it supports, one cannot move to the
informed, discriminating citizenship essential to the effective participation in
the democratic processes of governance and the fulfilment for all our citizens
of the nation’s democratic ideals.”
The key here is that knowledge is a precondition for moving forward, towards
understanding and critical thinking about society. So knowledge of history is not our
goal, but simply the first step towards achieving our objective. A means to an end.
UNDERSTANDING:
Understanding history means several things, but at its core it means to look at the
past and appreciate that there are different views, versions and accounts of the
past. Students need to weigh and interpret these views in terms of historical context
and the author’s perspective. From this reckoning, students will be able to form
defensible opinions of the past, and understand that the past is always changing.
Furthermore, students should begin to recognise cause and effect, and be able to
create an informed narrative of past events. Finally, understanding history means
understanding that people in the past were different to us. Samuel Wineburg
(1999) explains it like this: “…history holds the potential, only partly realized, of
humanising us in ways offered by few other areas of the school’s curriculum...an
undestanding of the world’s many cultures can contribute to fostering the kind of
patience, mutual respect and civic courage required in our increasingly pluralistic
society and our increasingly interdependent world.”
HISTORICAL SKILLS:
Essentially, our final objective is to give the students the ability to develop and
articulate reasoned judgments about the past and the world we live in today. The
National Standards say that students should be able to:
“use the skills of historical comprehension to analyze historical evidence and
draw conclusions based upon that evidence…”
and that students should have:
“…the ability to examine issues in the past (and present) and make informed
decisions about them.”
For us, what this means is that our students should be able to identify an issue,
collect evidence (research), weigh up that evidence (critical thinking), and finally
make an informed opinion about their original hypothesis (essay writing,
presentations, debates, etc).
Importantly, these skills do not simply apply to the past, but allow students to make
intelligent decisions about the present. This is where history gets its relevance
today.
7. THE VALUE OF MCQs IN ASSESSING HISTORY ATIS Social Studies – Iain Davey, May 2016
SO DO MCQs HELP US TO ACHIEVE OUR OBJECTIVES?
• Yes and no
• Multiple choice questions are a great way to check for knowledge.
• As we discussed in the previous slides, knowledge of history is the
prerequisite to understanding the past and discussing it intelligently,
therefore MCQs are an effective and efficient method of ensuring that the
students have the necessary knowledge.
• However, MCQs are not effective in assessing students’ understanding of
history, or of the skills that we are trying to develop.
8. THE VALUE OF MCQs IN ASSESSING HISTORY ATIS Social Studies – Iain Davey, May 2016
WHAT’s THE HARM IN USING MCQs? WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS?
• As we just saw, MCQs can be an effective tool for making sure our students
have the necessary knowledge to move forward.
• If we want to make sure that students are doing the readings, then MCQs
(and MCQ tools like Socrative) are awesome for this.
• MCQs are also great in that they’re easy to grade, which is always a plus.
• MCQs also have the tangential benefit of giving students more opportunities
to practice. MCQs are very popular in university, especially in large first-year
classes.
• We would like our graduates to get to university as best prepared as
possible, so if they are used to using good technique with MCQs (reading the
question carefully, reading each option carefully, and identifying the most
correct answer) then that’s a win for us.
9. THE VALUE OF MCQs IN ASSESSING HISTORY ATIS Social Studies – Iain Davey, May 2016
WHAT’s THE HARM IN USING MCQs? WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS?
• However, there are also downsides to using this type of question:
• A preponderance of MCQs encourages memorization instead of
understanding – this is a waste of the student’s study time (which is already
scarce due to a crowded curriculum).
• It’s fine for students to memorize, as long as they’re memorizing necessary
knowledge.
• MCQs do not allow students to demonstrate the higher order skills we need
to assess.
The bottom line is, MCQs are good, but only when they are used correctly (good
questions, asked for the right reasons)
10. THE VALUE OF MCQs IN ASSESSING HISTORY ATIS Social Studies – Iain Davey, May 2016
PRACTICALLY SPEAKING, HOW CAN MCQs BE USED MOST
EFFECTIVELY?
• At my best, I try to use two criteria to make a good MCQ: the question must
be assessing a desired learning outcome, and the correct answer must be
clear and irrefutable.
• Let’s look at some examples:
In which month of 1948
did the Berlin Airlift
begin?
a) January
b) June
c) July
d) August
Who attacked intolerance,
injustice, prejudice and
superstition?
a) Locke
b) Voltaire
c) Rousseau
d) Hobbes
Choose the correct
chronological order of the
events below:
a) Glasnost, Brezhnev Doctrine,
Fall of the Berlin Wall.
b) Glasnost, Fall of the Berlin
Wall, Brezhnev Doctrine.
c) Fall of the Berlin Wall,
Glasnost, Brezhnev Doctrine.
d) Brezhnev Doctrine, Glasnost,
Fall of the Berlin Wall.BAD: Unnecessary knowledge. It
would have to be a very specific
learning outcome that required
students to know which month the
Berlin Blockade began.
BAD: The correct answer here is
not irrefutable. Although the
textbook says that Voltaire
attacked intolerance, injustice,
prejudice and superstition, that is
not to suggest that the others
didn’t. It’s pedantic.
GOOD: If we want students to
understand and discuss the Cold
War, we could reasonably expect
that they would know the correct
order of these events.
11. THE VALUE OF MCQs IN ASSESSING HISTORY ATIS Social Studies – Iain Davey, May 2016
PRACTICALLY SPEAKING, HOW CAN MCQs BE USED MOST
EFFECTIVELY?
• As you can see, MCQs are best for achieving our first objective as history
teachers – making sure students have the required knowledge to get the
higher order skills that we wish to assess.
• Therefore, to make sure we are using MCQs effectively, we MUST HAVE AN
EXCELLENT UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT OUR LEARNING OBJECTIVES ARE!
• That is, we need to know where we want the students to go. We know that
we want students to have a good understanding of the topic, and the ability
to analyze sources and to create their own intelligent opinions about the
past. To get there, we need to think clearly about what knowledge they need
to achieve these goals…and THAT’s the knowledge we assess in our MCQs.
• If we’re throwing in questions in tests, quizzes and exams that are assessing
unnecessary knowledge, we’re alienating students (who may already think
that history is useless) and forcing them to expend time on learning things
they don’t need.
12. THE VALUE OF MCQs IN ASSESSING HISTORY ATIS Social Studies – Iain Davey, May 2016
DISCUSSION: WHAT ARE THE ALTERNATIVES TO MCQs?
So now that we appreciate the limitations of MCQs, what are our alternatives?
13. THE VALUE OF MCQs IN ASSESSING HISTORY ATIS Social Studies – Iain Davey, May 2016
DISCUSSION: WHAT ARE THE PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS FOR THE
WAY THAT WE TEACH?
With what we’ve discussed so far, what do we need to do (or get) to better achieve our objectives?
Notas do Editor
Before the start of the presentation, explain what you’re going to talk about and the personal reasons why. Try to diffuse any sense of separation between yourself and the other teachers, but rather try to engender a sense of collaboration, with better results and better practice as the shared goal. Give the teachers the dummy test, with 10 MCQs, two short answer questions and an extended response. After they have finished, tell them to hold on to the tests and that you will check them in a little while.
Explain the purpose of the seminar. Explain again that to achieve these results there needs to be collaboration between yourself and themselves.
Quick one. Just the structure of the presentation so that the participants know where we are and where we’re going.
The first of three slides of the purpose of studying history. In ATIS’ case, this is the crux of the presentation, to explain that knowledge (facts, trivia, dates, important individuals and their contributions) are important, but not for the sake of the knowledge itself, but for the platform it provides us to move into higher order thinking and demonstrating practical, relevant skills.
The main point of this slide is to discuss how from a knowledge of history, we need to encourage students (ideally through an inquiry) to begin to understand the many faceted nature of history as a discipline. This doesn’t just include recognising that there are different perspectives of the same event, but also cause and effect, and an appreciation that people from the past and different from today.
Emphasize that this understanding is impossible without some prior learning, or at least acknowledging the gaps in our knowledge of the past.
Ultimately, this is where history draws most of its relevance, from the practical skills that we wish to develop in students:
Critical analysis;
Research
Being able to articulate these views clearly and intelligently.
The point of this (and the following slides) is to emphasize that MCQs are effective, but only in a very particular, narrow way.
Quickly go through and explain the benefits of MCQs. This is a good point to draw out some answers from the seminar, and if appropriate add to the list of benefits to using MCQs.
These are the downsides, and the conclusion.
It is important to underline the point that MCQs are useful, and that we’re not trying to get rid of them, but rather to know how to use them (which are discussed in the following slides)
Here is the criteria I use (and wish I had used more often in the past) to try and make good MCQs.
As you go through each example, before showing the red or green text-boxes, try and see what the rest of the seminar thinks about each question, and why.
This is key. If we know that we can use MCQs to check for knowledge, and we know that the knowledge is only useful when it lays a foundation for higher understanding and skills, then it follows that when we make MCQs, we have to know how that assessed knowledge will contribute to our other goals. Explain this in a few different ways to make sure everyone gets it. Use the side of the whiteboard if necessary.
This is an open discussion with the rest of the seminar. Hopefully we can create a situation where we are bouncing ideas off of each other to get some great assessment ideas that are practical for our situation at ATIS.
This is an extension of the previous slide. It may follow that after discussing different assessment ideas, we might identify ways that we need to change our basic practice. Ideally, this may become a forum where we can discuss our concerns about what we’re doing wrong and highlight what we’re doing right as a department.
