The Problem of a Broad, Heterogeneous Domain
Consider Developmental Learning Objective 2 in the previous list. Now, think about questions you could ask students to assess how well they have achieved this learning objective. Your questions need to require students to analyze a reading passage and make inferences based on information in it. The example below shows three possible questions. These questions are passagebased items from the National Assessment of Educational Progresscivics test. The numbers in the brackets are the percentage of twelfth-grade students who answered each question correctly.
Example
1. In what way does the article show one of the strengths of federalism? [32%] (2006-12C7, question 9)
2. In what fundamental way do the two quotes above show different understandings of the rights of citizens? [51%] (2006-12C7, question 3)
3. The events at Central High School in Little Rock showed that . . . [60%] (2006-12C5, question 17)
You can see that each question refers to a different passage with different viewpoints expressed. Further, the percentage of students answering one question is quite different from the percentage answering another. Studies of these types of questions show that those who answer one question right are not necessarily the same students who get another question right. We can conclude from this that Developmental Learning Objective 2 represents a broad domain of reading passages and that mastering one part of the domain does not mean mastering another. This is the case with developmental learning objectives like those listed previously.