A corpus of over 300 history questions sampled from four intermediate-level history textbooks¶

Element · All elements
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

The taxonomy was built from a question corpus assembled in two stages. An initial search of six intermediate-level history textbooks yielded about 200 items used for a first approximation; the second stage was "a systematic sampling of over 300 items from four current and commonly used intermediate-level history textbooks." Categorizing this pool forced revisions to the original taxonomy before the authors reached consensus on the final categories. The corpus serves as the empirical basis for the taxonomy's coverage and for its claim that certain explanation question types are most common in social studies textbooks.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Items must be drawn from the Wh- and How categories plus unexpected types to achieve coverage of question varieties

Constraints¶

• The pool is limited to intermediate-level American history textbooks current at the time of the study

Target Learners¶

• intermediate-grade history students

Target Learning Goals¶

• answering textbook and test questions in history

Claims¶

Related Elements¶

Examples¶

• Teachers and publishers should know question types and their cognitive demands before deciding how to teach about and use questions

Key Sources¶

• Armbruster, Bonnie B.; Anderson, Thomas H.; Bruning, Roger R.; Meyer, Linda A. (1984). What Did You Mean by That Question? A Taxonomy of American History Questions. Technical Report No. 308. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED240511