 When
high school and college students view the online material that supplements
their printed textbooks, a growing number of them are encountering the
World's Smallest Political Quiz.
That's because at least a dozen popular textbooks feature the Quiz as
part of their enhanced digital content, according to new research by
the Advocates for Self-Government.
The Quiz is featured in the online supplemental material for such best-selling
textbooks as Power & Choice: An Introduction to Political Science,
Government in America: People, Politics, and Policy, and Challenge
of Democracy, the research found.
This is significant, said Advocates president Sharon Harris,
because it means that every year, tens of thousands of American students
are exposed to the Quiz and its expanded model of politics.
"It's exciting to find the Quiz mentioned in the online course
materials offered by America's biggest publishers," she said. "It's
even more exciting that so many students are learning about a political
spectrum that includes libertarians -- rather than being force-fed a
false, intellectually invalid model that only includes Left and Right."
Textbooks and e-learning materials that cite the World's Smallest Political
Quiz are offered by some of the most prominent names in the educational
publishing field, including the McGraw-Hill Companies, Prentice Hall,
W.W. Norton, and Houghton Mifflin Company.
Eight of the textbooks identified by the Advocates are written for American
Government or Political Science classes. Four other textbooks are designed
for writing, communication, or philosophy classes.
The movement to offer Web-based curriculum content has exploded over
the past five years as more schools get connected to the Internet. Wired.com
called the shift to e-learning materials a "full-blown digital
revolution."
Supplemental materials for textbooks can include streaming audio and
video, updated text for printed textbooks, links to related sites or
to online reference works, interactive exercises, and practice tests.
The material is usually accessed from a special section at a publisher's
Web site.
The textbooks that incorporated the World's Smallest Political Quiz
into their e-learning materials did so in a variety of ways. Some encouraged
students to take the Quiz to discover their own ideology. For example,
the online supplement to Political Science: An Introduction,
noted, "The World's Smallest Political Quiz can help you find your
political identity."
Other e-learning Web sites employed the Quiz to explain the full spectrum
of political beliefs, and a few used it as part of a program to encourage
students to evaluate the accuracy and agendas of political Web sites.
Textbooks that feature the Quiz in their online material include:
• Government in America: People, Politics, and
Policy, Brief Seventh Edition (Study Edition) by
Robert Lineberry, Martin Wattenberg, & George Edwards (Pearson Longman).
• Power & Choice: An Introduction to Political
Science, by W. Phillips Shively (McGraw-Hill Companies).
• Introduction to Government & Politics: A Conceptual
Approach (Sixth Edition), by Mark O. Dickerson and Thomas
Flanagan (Nelson Publishing).
• Essentials of American Government: Continuity and
Change (2004 Edition), by Karen O'Connor and Larry J.
Sabato (Pearson Longman).
• A Quick Guide to the Internet for Speech Communication
(1999 Edition), by Terrence A. Doyle and Doug Gotthoffer (Allyn &
Bacon).
• A Meeting of Minds: A Brief Rhetoric for Writers
and Readers, by Ann Douglas and Patsy Calagham (Pearson
Longman).
• Government in America: People, Politics, and Policy
(Brief Seventh Edition), by George C. Edwards, Martin P. Wattenberg,
and Robert L. Lineberry (Pearson Longman).
• Political Science: An Introduction,
by Michael G. Roskin, Robert L. Cord, James A. Medeiros, and Walter
S. Jones (Prentice Hall).
• Challenge of Democracy (Seventh Edition),
by Kenneth Janda, Jeffrey M. Berry, and Jerry Goldman (Houghton Mifflin
Company).
• American Government: Policy and Politics
(Seventh Edition), by Neal Tannahill (Pearson Longman).
• We The People (Third Edition), by Benjamin
Ginsberg, Theodore Lowi, and Margaret Weir (W.W. Norton & Company).
• Converging Media: An Introduction to Mass Communication,
by John Pavlik and Shawn McIntosh (Allyn & Bacon).
The Quiz is also cited in the online "American Government Resources"
offered by Wadsworth/Thompson. Those resources are designed to be used
with "all Wadsworth American Government textbooks," according
to the Web site.
In addition, the Advocates for Self-Government is mentioned in the online
material for The Philosophical Journey, by
William Lawhead (McGraw-Hill). The book notes that the Advocates' Web
site is "devoted to the protection of civil liberties."
The e-learning research comes on the heels of another Advocates' study
which revealed that more than 250 high schools and colleges use the
Quiz in the classroom. [See related article.]
However, the appearance of the Quiz in textbooks and in online course
material may be even more significant than its use in classrooms, Harris
said.
"Individual teachers come and go, but textbooks stay," she
noted. "A popular textbook is used in dozens -- or hundreds --
of classrooms, year after year, and reaches tens of thousands of students.
So the Quiz will have an impact on the educational system, and on students'
understanding of politics, for years to come."
The World's Smallest Political Quiz asks 10 questions about personal
and economic issues. Based on the answers, it instantly identifies a
person as conservative, liberal, centrist, libertarian, or statist,
and displays that ideological identity on a diamond-shaped political
chart.
The Quiz has been widely hailed as the first political quiz to go beyond
the traditional Left-Right model of politics. It was invented by Advocates'
founder Marshall Fritz, based on an original idea by Libertarian Party
founder David Nolan.
The Quiz is also the Internet's most popular political quiz. More than
4 million people have taken the online version, and more than 13,400
Web sites link to it.
Over the past several years, a growing number of educators have endorsed
the Quiz as a legitimate educational tool.
For example, W. Phillips Shively, author of Power & Choice:
An Introduction to Political Science, wrote: "While there
are many sites on the Web that profess to tell you your political views,
this one actually does a fairly good job and, as claimed, it is incredibly
short! This is a fun way to get more information on the different political
ideologies."
Joel W. Cade, a Philosophy instructor at Loyola University, Chicago,
said, "I have found the quiz to be amazingly accurate and an invaluable
tool for my political philosophy courses."
And Sean D. Foreman, Ph.D., an American Government professor at Union
Institute & University, North Miami, Florida, said, "I have
been using the Quiz in my American Government class for about five years.
Students usually find it to be an eye-opener."
Click here to take the online Quiz.
The Advocates for Self-Government is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization
that encourages the public to understand and embrace libertarian ideas. |
