ABSTRACT
The teaching of social history has always raised significant problems for experts in evaluation as well as teachers who seek criteria and instruments capable of assessing the effectiveness of their educational work. This is because, within what is generally defined learning history’, a wide range of cognitive activities can be identified, including both general and more specific activities. Educational work in the field of history offers a wide range of stimuli, with the drawback that only rarely will any particular skill be totally developed. It is theoretically possible to undertake a unit with the explicit purpose of developing, for example, the skills of ‘extrapolation’ or ‘judgement counter-balance’ etc. The introduction of computers into school has considerably widened the opportunities available for this type of test. Thus, for example, the chosen criteria may be getting a score in a game, retrieving data from or inserting data into an electronic file, managing to print a table etc.
