Chapter 9: Assessment of Higher Order Thinking: The Case of Historical Thinking

Disciplinary expertise requires mastery over both domain-specific declarative and procedural knowledge: understanding the fundamental concepts of a discipline, their organization and relationships with each other, and the means by which claims are tested and new knowledge is generated.¹ In this chapter, we use “higher order thinking” to capture the complex interaction of these various components of disciplinary expertise. Progression towards disciplinary expertise that involves these interactions, even at relatively novice levels, is thus a complex matter. Assessment of this progression, that is, learning, is similarly complex. In mathematics, testing students’ memory of a specific formula does not capture their knowledge of when and where the application of the formula is appropriate. In history, students’ recall of the date of the Dred Scott decision does not indicate their understanding of its historical significance, much less how interpretations of its significance have changed over time.