Unlike questions that test only memorization of definitions, the new questions require students to apply deeper understandings of concepts to novel situations, as illustrated in the following two pairs of questions. The two pairs of questions are from different tests, covering different parts of the course. Within each pair, the first question is a question that I was dissatisfied with because of the ability of students to answer it correctly based on little more than having memorized a definition. The second question requires the same basic comprehension, but also requires a deeper understanding of the concepts involved.
Test One – Old question from my test on meta-ethics:
What is the main idea of cultural relativism?
(I) Moral beliefs vary from one culture to another.
(J) Morality itself (not just moral beliefs) varies from one culture to another.
(K) No culture has one particular morality that can be identified with it.
(L) Morality is the same all over the world because all cultures share the same beliefs.
The answer to this question is J, and a student could answer this question correctly by simply memorizing this fact from the textbook or class notes.
New question from my test on meta-ethics:
In the following dialogue, which of the following statements is incompatible with cultural relativism?
(A) Robert: “Child labor is found in many cultures. When children are forced to work in factories as early as the age of eight, they suffer serious consequences in terms of lost educational opportunities, limited time for peer interactions, and risks of injury or death.”
(B) Larry: “Some countries rely heavily on child labor, and would suffer devastating economic consequences if they were forced to give it up.”
(C) Robert: “Despite these consequences, the harms to children are too great to ignore. It is wrong of those cultures to force children to work.”
(D) Larry: “Perhaps those cultures could be persuaded, with carefully targeted economic incentives, to voluntarily discontinue their practices of child labor.”
Since the students had not seen this dialogue previously, nor is it likely that they had memorized a list of statements that are incompatible with cultural relativism, this question effectively requires students to have a solid grasp of cultural relativism. If a student were to read the foregoing conversation and did not notice that Robert’s assertion of a culture-independent moral claim (in answer C) commits him to denying cultural relativism, then I would not regard that student as really knowing what it meant to affirm, or deny, that view. And yet, such a student might well be able to recite the definition from memory.
Test Two – Old question from my test on normative ethics:
Utilitarianism says that, in any circumstance, the right thing to do is ____.
(A) whatever God commands
(B) whatever will be most immediately useful
(C) whatever will make you as happy as possible
(D) whatever will make everyone affected as happy as possible
Again, the correct answer to this question (which is D) could be known merely on the basis of memorization.
New question from my test on normative ethics:
Which of the following statements is the strongest evidence that the person saying it is a utilitarian?
(A) Ginny: “Violations of rights are very serious, from the moral point of view.”
(B) Helen: “I agree. It is always immoral to violate someone's rights.”
(C) Ginny: “Well, I wouldn’t say ‘always’. It’s o.k. to violate rights whenever the good you can produce by doing so outweighs the harm you do by violating the person’s rights.”
(D) Kate: “I disagree with both of you. In my opinion, it’s immoral to violate someone’s rights unless doing so is the only way to prevent that person from violating others’ rights.”
Like the previous conversation, this one would not have been shown to the students in advance, and they would not be likely to have blindly memorized anything that would point them in the direction of the correct answer (which is C). Instead, a student would have to understand the underlying idea of utilitarianism, and the commitments associated with it, in order to answer this question correctly.
The revised questions, then, measure deep understanding by requiring students to detect statements in hypothetical conversations that meet certain criteria. Because the statements that the students are being asked to detect are related to the main ideas (e.g., cultural relativism and utilitarianism) in somewhat rigidly defined ways (e.g., incompatibility and inductive support), the questions are not arbitrary and can be seen to have one clearly best answer. The advantage of the conversational format for presenting the statements is two-fold. First, they provide for better “camouflaging,” so that the student has to grasp the content of what is being said rather than merely being confronted with a phrase or expression that he or she would be more likely to remember from the book or class notes. Second, they better test the kind of understanding that will serve students well outside the classroom. In normal conversations, ethical views are rarely affirmed, denied, or supported in the canonical terms of textbook definitions; instead, views are expressed more indirectly. The revised questions come closer to simulating this mode of discussing ethical issues.| << Background | ^TOP^ | Observations >> |
