Advocates for Self-Government

The Quiz in Textbooks

New Study: Quiz used in e-learning materials for high school, college textbooks

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.