Social Studies Teacher Perceptions of the Usefulness of Particular Item Types to Assess Selected Cognitive Outcomes

Abstract

Teachers' familiarity with guidelines for the construction of items which would measure the higher thinking processes was assumed to be prerequisite knowledge for actual assessment of those processes. A survey which required the association of a particular item-type (short answer, true-false, essay, etc.) with levels of Bloom's taxonomy was administered to 60 secondary social studies teachers. Comparisons of teacher response with guidelines as found in nineteen current measurement textbooks showed largest discrepancies with regard to the use of true-false items to measure knowledge, use of multiple-choice items to measure higher-level thought processes, and use of essay to measure knowledge. It was concluded that teacher perception of the relationship between item-type and cognitive skill assessed is incongruent with the perceptions of authors of tests and measurement textbooks. Potential causes of such incongruencies are discussed.

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