What is the meaning of Stimulus?
Cambridge dictionary defines 'Stimulus' as something that causes growth, activity, or reaction. In the area of educational assessment, stimulus acts as a context for answering one or more questions. It helps in triggering thoughts, actions and emotions as indicated in educational standards defined for school education. The thought process invoked by a stimulus-based question is entirely different than those evoked by stimulus free questions. While teachers find such questions to be more useful in assessing higher cognitive abilities, students find them more engaging and interesting which leads to a better teaching learning experience.
Subject specific examples for choice of stimulus
- Math- calendars, data tables, currencies, geometric shapes, etc.
- Language- poems, pictures, newspaper articles, railway tickets, posters, etc.
- Social Science- maps, sketches, date lines, historical sources, political cartoons, etc.
- Science- experiments, diagrams, objects, etc.
An example of stimulus-based assessment item
One of the curricular expectations for Environmental Sciences as defined by NCERT is to acquire awareness about immediate/wider surroundings through lived experiences on various themes related to daily life for example Family, Plants, Animals, Food, Water, Travel, and Shelter etc. The following assessment items helps to assess ability to identify various means of communication, record observations, experiences, information places visited in different ways, voice opinion on issues observed and show sensitivity for diverse set of people. These are some of the core and essential skills for Environmental Sciences.
- Can you identify the different vehicles shown here by hearing the sounds they make?
- Can you also make the sounds of some of these vehicles?
- How many of these vehicles have bells and how many have horns?
- Which among all these make loud noises and how many do not make noise?
- Can you think of ways of travelling other than given in the picture?
- How do you travel when you go to meet your friends and relatives? Write a brief account of any recent visit to your relative home?
- Ask your friends how they come to school and note their responses. Which is the most frequently used mode of communication?
Design considerations for stimulus-based questions
While stimulus-based questions are found to be more effective for assessing students learning in a more valid manner, designing such questions are often time consuming. Creating a good stimulus may cost time ranging from 3 to 4 hours which is way higher than designing stimulus free questions. A possible approach to combat this challenge is to design multiple questions based on one stimulus. This also works in favour of students as they engage with one stimulus in a deeper manner that in turn enables them to respond better.
It is also important to ensure that the stimulus chosen is clear, unambiguous, factually and conceptually accurate. Poor quality stimulus will lead to invalid assessments as it will be hard to assess if students have not responded to a question because of unclear stimulus or because the student has not attained the desired standard of learning. Also, it is important to note that including stimulus unnecessarily does not add any value to the assessment. A conscious choice needs to be made by the teacher in evaluating the pertinency of stimulus for assessing chosen educational standards. A stimulus might be avoided where a concept can be assessed effectively through stimulus-free questions. This also helps to lessen cognitive load on students.
To conclude, a good quality stimulus helps to stimulate our assessments through initiating and activating the desired cognitive abilities among students. However, it important to note that the question types (stimulus-free and stimulus-based) should be selected according to their specific strengths and weaknesses and should be tailored to the specific needs of the assessment.
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