Globalisation, Education Policy and Reform: Changing Schools: Perceptions from the Field: Decision-Making Curriculum in the Secondary Social Studies Classroom

Despite increased restrictions on pedagogical strategies in correlation with teaching to the test, participants in this study identified Robert Stahl’s decision-making materials as an effective way to integrate inquiry, value clarification, and historical empathy into the high-stakes testing environment. For example, teachers favor self-identifying decision-making phases as a natural and necessary component of knowledge construction. Teachers desired students to self-identify with scenarios and content materials during decision-making. This study attempts to answer the following question: What are high school teachers’ perceptions and application of Robert Stahl’s decision-making materials while teaching history content? Because the intervention of decision-making materials aims to promote inquiry, value clarification, and cooperative learning, we expected the interviews would help increase the use of supplemental materials to aid both in curriculum development and content knowledge retention.