Understanding concepts in social science: towards an effective evaluation strategy

The understanding of concepts in social science was investigated by interviewing students studying two foundation courses in Social Science at the Open University. The investigation was carried out using the research paradigm of phenomenography (Marton, 1981) where the content of learning is seen as a quality rather than as a quantity. There were two aims of the research.

1. To discover the different understandings that students hold of particular important concepts in Social Science.
2. To use the method as a method of formative evaluation to influence the production of new course materials.

This paper concentrates on describing the results in terms of two evaluation strategies: Formative evaluation, where the students' understandings of the concept before the course were used to influence the teaching strategy of the remade course. Summative evaluation, where the students' answers before and after the course were compared to evaluate their learning on the course.