College students are ignorant, forgetful and have a severe lack of knowledge when it comes to American history, according to a report released by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) last month.

For the second year in a row, ISI, a non-profit educational organization, conducted a test of 14,000 college freshmen and seniors at 50 U.S. colleges and universities. And for the second consecutive year, the group said American students failed miserably, answering less than 55 percent of questions correctly.

‘The evidence from our ongoing research shows that colleges are failing to advance students’ knowledge of America’s history, government and free-market economics, and consequently not preparing their students to be informed and engaged citizens,’ the ISI reported.

But the 60-question test on American history, U.S. government, international relations and economics did not impress most history professors at Syracuse University. Though the exam brings to light students’ inability to retain critical information, the test merely gives a ‘snapshot of what people know,’ said American history professor David Bennett.

American history professor James Sharp offered an explanation for the results: Students typically study American history in high school, but the test is administered to college students.

‘If someone is not an American history major, theyhaven’t taken this course since high school, and people do forget things,’ said assistant history professor Andrew Cohen.

While professors at SU think the questions on the exam are fair, that doesn’t mean they test a student’s overall knowledge of American history.

‘The questions look good, but I would also argue that it reinforces a view of history that consists of history being a string of facts,’ Sharp said. ‘(It) distorts what is important about history.’

Sophomore photography major Jackie Poinier said she believes that students do not retain this information because ‘other countries have a deeper culture than we do. … Our country is not rooted in nationality.’

‘The test certainly tells us that studentsdon’t recall specific facts, drawn from a traditional notion of American history that focuses on dates, politics, law, war and religion in the period before 1860,’ Cohen said. ‘But I resist the sponsor’s negative value judgment.’

While the questions on the test are strongly based on facts, which might have something to do with the failing scores, it does not dismiss that today’s students are also ignorant, professors said.

‘It is true that a large number of undergraduates are astonishingly illiterate when it comes to American History,’ Bennett said.

The results are ‘a sorry tale that students couldn’t get a passing grade,’ and if students ‘don’t know what the New Deal is or when Lincoln was elected president, that says something about their failure to know facts,’ he said.

One assumption is that technology is a factor in a student’s inability to retain information. But Paul Gandel, vice president of information technology at SU, does not completely agree there is a cause-and-effect relationship between dropping scores and the rise of the Internet.

‘Just because people do not remember a fact isn’t good or bad,’ Gandel said. ‘It is unrealistic to expect everyone to remember everything.’

He compared the advancements in Internet to the invention of the television.

‘Television opened a window to our world,’ he said. ‘The Internet provides the public with a huge, rich, array of information.’

The results of the test also indicate whether students ‘have a sense of what has happened,’ Bennett said.

‘We are living in an era of change. If we knew our history, it would give us a better perspective,’ Sharp said. He added that history is similar to how Americans are constantly relying on their memories to make decisions. If students cannot recall on the past, it is more likely to repeat itself.

But the professors were clear in that they don’t think all curriculums should require history classes.

‘Getting people to be enthusiastic is the hardest part,’ Cohen said, ‘and chastising a student for not knowing something is seldom effective.’

Instead of drilling facts into students’ heads, Cohen said he tries to give them a way to ‘interpret history’ and obtain skills that allow his students to reason. Cohen prefers to give essay tests, which ensure students can write and understand themes, he said.

‘If we focus on facts alone, students don’t learn to analyze,’ Cohen said. He believes that important interpretation skills are lost on fact-based exams.

According to ISI’s Web site, the organization is ‘a non-profit, non-partisan, tax-exempt educational organization’ that works ‘to educate for liberty.’

A majority of the test’s questions involve facts surrounding the America’s founding fathers and religious values that were present around the revolution.

‘If you want to get a sense of what people know, make sure the questions are broadly based,’ Cohen said. It should test knowledge not only on the goals of the founding fathers, but on topics like women’s rights, slavery and working conditions, he said.

‘A more broadly conceived test might show that undergraduates know a great deal about the historyof everyday life, technology, culture or society,’ Cohen said.’I need a sense of what undergraduates do understand before I can come to any conclusions as to whethereither the professors or the studentsare failing.’

Published on October 3, 2007 at 12:00 pm