A comparison of judgments of Montana's high school, college instructors regarding the relative importance of topics for a course in United States history in the high school

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine if the judgments of Montana's high school United States history teachers and the judgments of Montana's college and university United States history professors coincide regarding essential content topics for an eleventh grade course in United States history. A questionnaire was developed and tested for validity and reliability. The instrument collected judgments of the two populations concerning the relative importance of forty-four topical areas. In addition, judgments concerning course length, grade level placement, the required status of United States history, and the minimum number of quarter credits deemed appropriate for high school United States history teachers were collected and compared. Respondents were also asked to assign an appropriate percentage of teaching time to five chronologically arranged periods of United States history. The questionnaires were sent to all of the United States history teachers and college and university United States history professors in Montana. Each item on the questionnaire was examined by means of a chi square statistic to determine if there was a significant difference between the judgments of the two populations. In general, the results show that the two populations ideally agree on the relative importance of thirty-nine of the forty-four topics. In light of what United States history teachers judge to be actual course content, however, agreement between the two populations is mixed. Of the forty-four topics presented, this analysis surfaced agreement concerning the relative importance of twenty topics. And the ideal-actual discrepancy analysis as judged by teachers showed agreement on three topics. In addition, the two populations agreed on an appropriate course length, the required status of United States history and the grade level placement of United States history. There was also little difference in the percentage of teaching time each population assigned to various historical periods. There was disagreement, however, between the minimum number of credits appropriate for Montana's United States history teachers.