The presentation focuses mainly on the methodology and
findings of a study that investigated the belief that the
Leaving Certificate is “all rote learning
and memory recall.”
The key research questions were:
●
What intellectual skills and knowledge domains are assessed
in the examination papers in the subjects included in the study?
●
What intellectual skills should be developed by students of
the Leaving Ce
rtificate, based on the developmental capacities
and challenges of students in the 16
–
19 age group?
The study was exploratory based on the assumption that the
reality studied, that is interpretation for intellectual skill, is
socially constructed. The fi
ndings of the study are proffered
as interpreted, contextual knowledge with the subjective
limitations that this implies. The presentation provides a brief
summary of key points from the literature search. A brief
rationale for document analysis and studen
t interviews is
presented. 228 command verbs were collected and a
software programme used to locate instances of the verbs in
the written examination papers for 23 subjects. The
Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) taxonomy with six
categories of intellectual ski
ll and four knowledge domains
was then used to assign values to 14,910 instances of the
verbs. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences was then
used to analyse the frequencies of intellectual skill and
knowledge domains in the examination papers. Thirt
y
students who had just completed the Leaving Certificate
were interviewed with a view to having them recall their
thought processes while they were sitting the written
examinations in ten subject areas. The findings of the
document analyses and student in
terviews were reviewed in
light of the literature search. This review revealed concerns
which culminated in several recommendations for curriculum
design and assessment