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Summary
This paper describes three investigations conducted by the University of London School Examinations Department into the possible use of stimulus questions, containing original historical material such as cartoons, maps, photographs and statistics, in the ‘O’ level history examination.
The results suggest that the new type of question works as well as or better than the conventional essay type of question. The various types of stimulus material seem to act differently. In general, candidates prefer and perform best in the verbal type of question. Different patterns of preference and performance emerge for boys and girls.
Against expectation, candidates were not afraid of the statistics question and both boys and girls scored equally highly on this. Girls preferred the cartoons and boys the map questions; photographs were not popular with either.
A comparison of the performance in the pretests with the GCE examinations shows that the stimulus questions with their short, structured sub‐questions seem to favour the boys.