Inefficacies of the California Social Science Standards and a Proposal for Change (Part 3 of 3)

This article is a transcription of the third and final chapter of my Master’s Thesis from December 2009.  In this chapter, I propose an action-plan for completely overhauling the California Social Studies Standards and the system of high-stakes testing designed to test their efficacy.

Purpose

In the previous chapters, it has been shown that the current structure of the social studies curriculum in grades K – 12 yields an inferior transmission of social studies concepts to the state’s youth, ultimately yielding poor results on state tests.  The purpose of this project is to demonstrate that revisions to the current content standards for social studies (including contextualizing the material in a more “worldly” sense and the complete elimination of certain standards at certain grade levels) is an effective method for generating more student interest and retention, and therefore yielding higher state test results in this subject.  This chapter will propose an action research plan by which this hypothesis could be tested.

Specific Revisions to the Standards

In order to adequately test the hypothesis, we must first define precisely what changes to the standards are being proposed. The weaknesses that exist in the current standards are as follows:

1. Primary grade standards are taught based on “folklore” rather than “historiography.”
2. Primary grade standards introduce content that is too mature for primary-aged children.
3. Because of (1) and (2), primary grade standards create a foundation of false knowledge that conflicts with concepts taught in secondary and post-secondary education.
4. The standards are highly repetitive across school years.
5. “World” history standards are not worldly but are Eurocentric or even Americentric.

Based on these weaknesses, the following changes are proposed:

1. Eliminate all standards from the primary grades that are concerned with historical events or personalities.  Retain only those standards that are concerned with civics and the basic functions of local, state, and national governments in the modern era.
2. Reorganize the remaining K – 12 standards so as to reduce or eliminate repetition of concepts across academic years.  Within a given academic year, the timeline of historical events assigned to that year should be addressed without significant gaps in chronology.  Heuristic devices such as periodization should only be introduced if they are parallel to those used by contemporary historians in the research field.
3. In “world” history curriculum, reduce the number of standards that are concerned with European and United States history.  Develop new, additional standards that are concerned with Asian, African, and American cultures.

For the purposes of this proposal, these modifications will be collectively referred to as the “new model,” while the standards as they currently exist will be referred to as the “old model.”

Setting and Population

In order to be most effective, the research study would have to be conducted monitoring two population groups over the entirety of their K – 12 education.  Group A would continue to be taught according to the old model, their progress and test results over successive years being compared with group B, using the new model.  This is an elaborate test that would require massive teacher participation and preparation.  It would also demand that no individuals from either group migrate to the other, although some attrition would have to be taken into consideration, due to family moves, discipline issues, transfers, etc.  A study of this scope would likely have to be conducted in relatively stable community where the great majority of the students will track together throughout their primary and secondary careers.  Unfortunately, this alone can corrupt the reliability of the study, as a stable community is more often than not a moderately wealthy community, many of which already yield acceptable test results under the old model.

To make the study more manageable, we would focus on two groups at the same grade level – preferably a secondary level – one group being taught according to the new model, one according to the old.  The population size should be large enough so that each group consists of several different teachers, allowing for individual teaching varieties within a given model of standards.  The population should also be as demographically diverse as possible, so as to attempt to isolate the standards themselves as our constant, while socio-economic status, diverse teaching styles, and diverse learning modalities are the variables.  If possible and affordable, the study should be conducted simultaneously at multiple school sites.  We suggest the study be administered to all sophomores in a single school district, the populations at each school site being divided in half into the two test groups.

Revisions to the High-Stakes Test

In the previous chapters, it has been shown that high-stakes tests (HSTs) are too specific while the standards are too broad.  It has also been argued that the old model is structured in such a way as to make the entire subject boring and uninteresting.  This creates severe impediments in students’ ability to learn the specific minutia that will appear on the test, as they become wholly disinclined to learn the general concepts in the first place.  I propose that the new model makes the subject matter more interesting, thereby encouraging independent learning above and beyond the standards and, through contextualization of the material, fostering better retention of both broad and specific concepts.

At the same time, in order for test results to more accurately measure the learning that has taken place over the course of the year, the test questions must be better aligned with the content standards and with what students can be reasonably expected to learn, barring variations in individual teacher’s styles and preferences.  However, as this proposal suggests a population of two groups, it would corrupt the study to have a separate HST for each group; both groups must take the same test in order to compare their relative results.  Therefore, for the purposes of the study, a new HST must be devised which meets the following criteria:

1. The HST is written in informal (non-academic) language, so as to eliminate academic literacy as a factor in testing mastery of social studies concepts.
2. The HST only includes questions about topics that are covered in both the old model and the new model.
3. The HST does not ask questions that are so specific that their subjects might not have received equal attention from multiple teachers.
4. The HST must not be limited to “multiple choice” format, but must also include written and oral portions (each with specific scoring criteria), so as to accommodate students’ diverse learning and comprehension modalities.
5. Any “multiple choice” portion of the HST must be of sufficient length and contain enough redundancy so as to eliminate the likelihood of accidentally high or low scores from either misunderstandings or “good guesses.”
6. The “interest question”: The HST must include a simple survey question: “Do you think history is interesting?”  This question could be answered with either a yes/no response or according to a scale where respondents indicate just how interesting they feel history is.  This last criterion is included specifically for the purposes of analyzing the data garnered from the test.

Procedure

All students in the population take the HST at the beginning of the study, relying only on any prior social studies knowledge they might have retained from earlier school years.  The results establish a base data set by which improvement can be measured at the end of the study.  At this stage, two factors are absolutely vital to minimize corrupted data.  First, students must be given meaningful incentive to do their best on the test.  Second, all students in the population must be given the exact same incentive.  The incentive could be as simple as connecting the test to their class grades, but it would ultimately be left to the researchers, teachers, and possibly even a student-representative group to decide what would be “meaningful” to the population.  If students feel for any reason that this test is not important to their academic success or to their personal lives, they will be likely to dismiss the test altogether, at which point any data garnered would be rendered meaningless.

Once base data is gathered, the academic year ensues.  Teacher group A gives instruction throughout the year to their students according to the old standards model.  Teacher group B gives instruction throughout the year to their students according to the new model.  Teachers from one group must not collaborate with teachers from the other group, lest instructional strategies or concepts from one standards model be integrated into the other model.  However, within a given group, teachers can collaborate as much or as little as they normally would.  Over the course of the year, teachers should feel free to customize instruction and periodic testing as they see fit, so long as they remain faithful to the transmission of their respective standards.

As the end of year nears, and with it the HST, specific review sessions or test preparation drills must be prohibited.  Such sessions run the risk of “teaching to the test”: artificially storing the necessary information in the students’ short-term memories and ultimately hiding the efficacy of the instructional methods that have been used throughout the year.  The only exception to this would be if a single test preparation program was administered to the entire population in the exact same way and within the exact same time frame.  Given the high propensity for variation among teachers, even to attempt this risks corrupting the data.

In the final stage of the study, all students in the population take the exact same HST as was taken at the beginning of the study.  Again, it is absolutely vital, even more so at this stage than at the beginning, that students have a vested interest in doing well on the test. This cannot be stressed enough.  Every possible measure must be taken to combat apathy among the students.  For every individual student who does not care about the test, the data becomes that much more meaningless.

Analyzing the Data

Results from the end-of-year HST are compared to results from the HST administered at the start of the year.  From both HSTs, results of group A (old model) are compared to the results of group B (new model).  From both HSTs, results from the entire population are compared to the students’ responses to the “interest question.”  Similarly, the responses to the “interest question” are analyzed to determine any shift in the level of expressed interest, and these shifts are analyzed further in terms of their relationship to test scores.  Researchers should acquire data that answer the following questions:

1. Is there significant improvement in student performance from the beginning of the year to the end of the year?
2. Is there a significant difference, at the end of the year, between the results of group A and the result of group B?
3. Is there a trend between a student’s individual test results and whether or not (or how much) he finds the subject matter “interesting” (based on the “interest question” included as part of the HST)?
4. Is there a shift in popular student interest levels for either group A or group B from the beginning of the year to the end, and how does this shift correspond to any detected trend in students’ test results?

Summary

The action research plan articulated above has been designed to answer four questions:

1. Do students find the current social studies content standards (old model) interesting?
2. Would students find a new, revised model of the standards more interesting?
3. Would the new model yield better results on a high-stakes test than the old model?
4. Is there a relationship between student interest in social studies and student performance on high-stakes tests?

It is hypothesized that revisions to the current content standards for social studies (including contextualizing the material in a more “worldly” sense and the complete elimination of certain standards at certain grade levels) is an effective method for generating more student interest and retention, therefore yielding higher state test results in this subject.  If this hypothesis is proved true, future steps might include: implementing the new standards model into all classrooms, replacing the original high-stakes test (in California, the STAR or CST) with the HST used in the study or one of a similar design, and/or conducting further, long-term studies to measure the impact of the revisions to the primary grade curriculum.  If the hypothesis is proved false, it would become necessary to design further study to delve into exactly what students find “interesting,” what factors motivate them to do well on high-stakes tests, and what elements of content and/or structure in the old standards model are resulting in a general disinterest in social studies.

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