The Intellectual Origins and Impact of the Document­ Based Question

During the 1960s and early 1970s, a new social studies was suggested for the public and private secondary schools of the nation. This reform emphasized teaching a mode of inquiry in place of the traditional factual-oriented ap­proaches. Students were taught to iden­tify social and historical problems, for­mulate hypotheses about these prob­lems, and gather supporting data. Using the techniques and methodology of so­cial scientists and a variety of education­ al media, students reached tentative generalizations about human events both past and present.

As part of these reforms, the second­ary school American history curriculum also underwent transformation. A “new” American history program was proposed for the high schools, and sev­eral “new” history projects were pub­lished. At Amherst College between 1963 and 1967, Edwin Rozwenc devel­oped Basic Concepts in History and Social Sciences, a paperback series featuring primary sources and  historiography that focused on twelve topics from the American Revolution to the Cold War (e.g., “Conflict and Consensus in the American Revolution” and “Slavery and the Breakdown of the American Con­sensus”). In the early 1970s another Amherst project was the New Dimensions in American History program developed by Van R. Halsey and Richard H. Brown. Thirteen paperbacks were constructed around topics such as “Com­munism in America,” “The Use of the Atomic Bomb,” ”Jefferson and the Em­bargo of 1807,” and “Lincoln and Slav­ery.” The booklets contained short in­troductions and fifty to seventy pages of primary and historiographic sources. Students used the sources as evidence to form questions and draw tentative con­clusions about the topic.

Perhaps most comprehensive of all the “new” history endeavors was the work of Edwin Fenton, a history profes­sor at Carnegie-Mellon University. In 1969 he wrote A New History of the United States for eleventh-grade American his­tory courses. Based on the assumptions of the inquiry-reform movement, the thirty-chapter book asked students to examine American history by analyzing source materials. The early chapters emphasized detecting bias, questioning and hypothesizing, and the skills histori­ans use as they sort data. The book and its teachers’ guide called for small group discussions and short writing exercises. Fenton’s materials discouraged the use of recitation and lecture.

These projects essentially set aside traditional textbooks and used primary and secondary source readings to train students to think like historians. Stu­ dents examined graphs, charts, and car­ toons in order to sharpen their analyti­cal and evaluative skills. Further, these projects called for hypothesis testing, generalization formulation, and an in­terdisciplinary approach to the study of history. The “new” history materials deemphasized factual recall and en­couraged students to move higher on Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Ob­jectives toward the levels of comprehen­sion, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

These curriculum ideas had an im­pact on many secondary school teach­ers, some of whom attended AP work­ shops and conferences, participated in the annual essay reading, and served on the Committee of Examiners in AP American History. From the beginnings of the AP American history program, these settings offered opportunities for secondary school and college teachers to interact and share ideas. College in­structors could reevaluate their survey courses to eliminate duplication and boring repetition; high school teachers could update their courses based on developments in historical scholarship and interpretations. As the “new” his­ tory gathered momentum through the mid- and late 1960s, these annual meet­ings offered opportunities for high school instructors to introduce the re­ form program to their college-level col­ leagues. From these exchanges, discus­sions, and dialogues concerning the “new” history, the concept of the Docu­ment-Based Question (DBQ) emerged.

In the early 1970s the Committee of Examiners in AP American History looked at developments and changes in the secondary school history curricu­lum. At several meetings various com­mittee members and College Board offi­cials expressed sentiments that the ex­amination and course description should not remain inflexible. They noted during a meeting on October 1, 1970 “that there is probably more innovation in the secondary schools than in the colleges, and that Advanced Placement can exercise leadership to recognize the good things that the schools are doing.”

For example, some high schools had purchased Fenton’s A New History of the United States for use in their eleventh­ grade history classes. Others experi­mented with the booklets produced at Amherst College to supplement their traditional textbooks and materials. Further, William Hochman, a professor of history at Colorado College and Committee of Examiners member, be­lieved that while the AP American his­tory test in the 1960s had reflected changes in content of history courses in areas such as black history, it had not kept up with changes in historical meth­odology. Thus, in the early 1970s, the committee began to relate new ap­proaches and ideas to the study of his­ tory with particular interest in the devel­opments in the secondary schools and in methodology.

At this time the Committee of Exam­iners in AP American History expressed awareness and interest in the inquiry movement that was underway in some secondary schools. The ideas and cur­ricula recommendations of the “new” history component of the new social studies had been flowing to the commit­tee from several different sources. In the early 1960s Edwin Fenton, later a prime advocate of the inquiry move­ment, participated in workshops at the University of Oregon with Charles Kel­ler, a historian at Williams College and the founder of the AP history program. Later in the 1960s Carnegie-Mellon University, the site of a major inquiry social studies project, hosted an annual AP conference, and Edwin Fenton ad­ dressed the college and secondary school committee members. Further, the Examining Committee discussed the new social studies and the “new” history when it met for its annual “think ses­sions” to discuss the examination. Thus, as the inquiry movement began  to form, ideas of  the reformers of  the secondary school curriculum were presented and evaluated in various AP forums over the course of the decade.

Perhaps most significant in bringing the “new” history to the committee’s attention was the effort of the individual secondary school members of the Examining Committee. This select group of public and private school teachers had a strong commitment to current trends in curriculum changes and a demonstrat­ed interest in the AP program. As E. G. Campbell, a professor of education at the University of Maryland, noted in his survey of AP American History teach­ers, these instructors were some of the best educated and most experienced teachers at the secondary school level. They were also active in professional social studies organizations where the “new” history was presented and en­dorsed.

Furthermore, these teachers often used “new” history techniques and methodology in their classes. If they did not directly use the materials, they were at least likely to be aware of current curricula reforms. Some secondary school committee members, such as Em­mett Wright, who served on the com­mittee from 1963-1969, attended pro­fessional conferences and kept up with materials and textbooks generated by “new” history projects. In fact, Wright wrote part of textbook series edited by Edwin Fenton during this era. Overall, many AP American History teachers were involved with the “new” history, and some of the most committed mem­bers of this group served on the Com­mittee of Examiners in AP American History where they shared their enthusiasm for these reforms with the college members of the committee.

The individual most responsible for the development and introduction  of the DBQ was Reverend Giles Hayes of the Delbarton School in Morristown, New Jersey. Reverend Hayes had a strong awareness and commitment to the “new” history of the 1960s, while being deeply influenced by the same era’s inquiry movement. He used Fen­ton’s A New History of the United States and employed parts of the New Dimen­sions in American History series published at Amherst College in his daily lessons. Consequently, these various inquiry materials were a strong element in his teaching strategy and philosophy of education. Reverend Hayes believed that Fenton’s inquiry materials led to his own conception of the DBQ. While Rev­erend Hayes would not categorize him­ self as a disciple of the inquiry move­ment, he did see it as a major part of his cultural and educational background in the 1960s.

From these exchanges, discussions, and dialogues concerning the “new” history, the concept of the Document-Based Question emerged.

Reverend Hayes became active in the AP program almost as soon as he left college. In 1969, at the annual AP con­ference at Southern Methodist Univer­sity, he suggested that the American history examination was too staid and had not changed since its inception in I956. At this meeting, he urged his AP colleagues “to get on board the discov­ery method.” That year Reverend Hayes became a reader for the essay section of the AP American History examination and a member of the Com­mittee of Examiners in AP American History. He, along with Stephen Klein, an Educational Testing Service consul­ tant to the program, began lobbying for the use of documents in the essay sec­tion. Reverend Hayes wanted the test to be more attuned to the historiography of the times. He hoped the examination would feature the skills of the “new” history that the secondary schools were advocating. He thought students should learn to make inferences and practice the skills of historians. While working on the AP examination, students, Rev­erend Hayes believed, should become junior historians and “play the role of historians for that hour.” In a broader sense, Reverend Hayes and others want­ ed the AP program to be the “cutting edge,” affecting curriculum develop­ments and responding to changes in the curriculum.

Other members of the Committee of Examiners supported the introduction of the DBQ. They also believed that the examination should place more empha­sis on measuring skills and be less con­cerned with the recall of previously learned information. They argued that there were basic skills that could be identified, and that these skills were explicitly historical as well as indepen­dent of intelligence. Supporters of the DBQ suggested that the use of charts, graphs, cartoons, pictures, and written materials offered a broader testing spec­trum for these historical skills than was possible with the standard essay.

For several members of the  commit­tee, the DBQ was thought to be an excellent means to assess students’ abili­ty to simulate the process of historical research. Committee members such as Alden Vaughan of Columbia University believed the DBQ was a measure of “historianship,” that is, skills the histori­an uses in sorting, weighing, and evalu­ating data. To others,  the DBQ presented students with the central problem of historians: how to evaluate sources and use them. Students demonstrated his­torical craftsmanship by evaluating and synthesizing historical evidence. The DBQ required students to read primary sources and derive inference from them.

Thus, Reverend Hayes and others associated with the AP American His­ tory program promoted the DBQ as a means to test students’ abilities in the techniques of historical research. They hoped students would demonstrate abil­ities to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate data such as historians would do in examining a problem. The use of pri­mary documents to test the process of historical investigation and the move­ment away from students simply recall­ing previously learned generalizations and conclusions were the hallmarks of the DBQ.

Similarly, the “new” history curricula recommendations called for students to use primary sources to learn the skills of historians. The reformers wanted stu­dents to analyze and synthesize histori­cal data. There was a strong link be­tween the “new” history and the DBQ. In fact, several people familiar with the AP program attributed the origins of the  DBQ to  the  reform  ideas. Stephen

Klein, one of the moving forces in the introduction of the essay, stated that the DBQ was a reflection of the inquiry movement. And Jerome Chermak, a researcher of the AP program at Boston University, noted in his study of inquiry skills and the AP examinations that “the Document-Based Question, in Fenton’s terms, is a direct discovery exercise.”

As the Examining Committee consid­ered the introduction of the DBQ in the early 1970s, some skepticism about it surfaced, especially among its college committee members. As the committee came to an eventual consensus on the merits of the DBQ, they addressed sev­eral general and specific concerns about the nature of the essay. One general issue raised was the desirability of pro­moting curriculum changes through the AP American History test. The commit­ tee was aware that the DBQ advocated a change from past procedures and norms, and they pondered the implica­tion of such an approach. Some mem­bers wondered  if  the test should  be an agent of curriculum change or continue as a measurement of the content and skills of existing college-level American History courses. As noted, DBQ sup­ porters such as Reverend Hayes be­lieved the AP program should be on the “cutting edge” of curriculum reform, and this view eventually prevailed as the committee endorsed the DBQ.

A more specific concern among com­mittee members was whether the DBQ would degenerate into an aptitude test that required only reading ability and common sense logic. Some feared it would become a glorified reading and intelligence test, with students who had little historical understanding receiving high scores. Supporters countered that the question would require students to use outside historical knowledge as they put the documents into a historical con­ text and interpreted their content.

Other committee members raised questions about the extent to which the DBQ simulated the task of historians. They noted the artificiality of the DBQ in the examination setting. In the time allotted by the test, students were un­ able to ponder or reflect on the docu­ments as historians actually do. More fundamental, the exercise eliminated the selection of evidence, a vital stage of the historian’s work. The student was presented with a preselected set of doc­uments, cartoons, graphs, and charts and given a problem to solve.

Some committee members wondered if within the above limitations, the DBQ would be a valid test of historical schol­arship. Supporters acknowledged some of these limitations but suggested that with the DBQ, students would be less likely to use memorized generalizations and conclusions and do more interpre­tation of verbal, quantitative, and picto­rial evidence. While not an exact repli­cation of the historical method, the DBQ offered a better means of testing these skills than had been available in the past.

Gradually, supporters of the DBQ reassured their more skeptical col­ leagues that the question could be a sound testing tool. Through discussions, sample questions and pretesting, a consensus developed that the question should be included as part of the essay section of the AP American History examination, and  in May 1973, the DBQ made its official debut.

It has been the thesis of this article that the American history curriculum reforms of the new social studies played a major role in convincing the Examin­ing Committee to create the DBQ. In a larger sense, it is clear that secondary school teachers can, and often do, play a vital role in the AP American History program. They are not just the “foot soldiers” who carry out the instructional wishes of their college-teaching col­ leagues. Rather, they offer valuable guidance and advice about the direction and nature of the entire examination. The AP program does present an op­portunity for meaningful sharing be­tween secondary schools and colleges.