IQ

Measuring the Inquiry Quotient of WebQuests

(A WebQuest about WebQuests)

Evaluation

As you complete the IQ WebQuest, you will produce four products: a working definition of inquiry, a (revised) rubric for evaluating the Inquiry Quotient of existing WebQuests, an evaluation and ranking of 10 existing WebQuests using your rubric, and a task for a new WebQuest.

Evaluating the Working Definition of Inquiry.

Good working definitions:

• Say what kind or type of thing it is as well as what distinguishes the particular thing from others of its kind or type. (For example, to define computer, you would need to say that it is an electronic device—the type of thing it is—but also that it is programmable—because that distinguishes it from other electronic devices.)
• Are concise. Good definitions define the term using as few words as possible.
• Are clear. Good definitions make sense, and do not confuse the reader.
• Are complete. Good definitions encompass multiple meanings of words and do not leave out meanings that are found in common usage.
• Are distinct. Good definitions show how a particular word is different from other similar words.
• Can be used to determine whether the word applies to a variety of situations. This is what makes a definition a “working” definition; that is, the definition can “do work” in the real world. In our case, we want the definition to work to distinguish inquiry from other forms of learning activities.

Now, using these criteria, evaluate your working definition of inquiry:

• Does your definition say what kind or type of thing inquiry is?
• Does your definition say how inquiry differs from other things of its kind or type?
• Is your definition concise? Is it as short as you can make it without becoming unclear?
• Is your definition clear? Does it make sense to others? Ask a few people to be sure.
• Is your definition complete? Does it encompass multiple meanings of the word inquiry? (One way to test this is to examine 10 examples of the appearance of the word inquiry on the Web, and see if your definition encompasses them all.)
• Does your definition distinguish inquiry from other similar words such as research, investigation, inquest, question, examination, scrutiny, exploration, review, or study? (It could be that some of these are real synonyms for inquiry, and that they cannot be distinguished.)

If your working definition meets all of these criteria, then it is a candidate for a good working definition.

The next step is to see if it can distinguish inquiry from other learning activities. Does your definition provide criteria for distinguishing the following activities from inquiry?

• Fact-finding, such as finding specific answers to close-ended questions
• Responding only to questions raised by the teacher and not to one’s own questions or the questions of other students
• Activities that are solely of “academic” interest, without any correlation to activities undertaken in the real world, or connection to student interests
• Activities that are constrained to just one discipline or subject area
• Activities that can be completed in minutes
• Activities that can be assessed using simple check-off sheets or whether the answer is “right” or “wrong”
• Selecting examples of a thing or type of thing
• Creating artistic works that meet certain criteria
• Presenting information or concepts created by others
• Communicating information to others
• Mimicking the activities of others or creating similar products
• Giving opinions that do not contain carefully selected evidence
• Comparing two scenarios or situations without creating general principles that can be applied to new situations
• Accepting information or opinions without careful examination of the reasons that a particular person or organization would have that point of view
• Using technologies without paying attention to whether they are appropriate to the task

Evaluating the IQ Rubric. To evaluate your rubric, ask yourself the following questions. Does the rubric relate to whether the WebQuest is centered on inquiry, rather than some other criterion? The rubric should not address aspects of WebQuests that are extraneous to the question of whether they involve inquiry. Does the rubric include developmental levels that allow for a comparison of different WebQuests? Does the highest level actually describe the ideal WebQuests, containing the highest level of inquiry, even if no existing WebQuests reach that level? Are the distinctions among various levels in any given criteria clear and easy to apply? Are multiple people applying the same rubric likely to come up with the same score? Can the rubric be understood by teachers and other developers of WebQuests? Can it be explained without using jargon or concepts that are even more complicated than inquiry? Is the rubric too time-consuming to be useful? Can a WebQuest be scored in a fairly reasonable amount of time—certainly less than 20 minutes? Are there redundancies or omissions that need to be corrected before the rubric is used? Do the ratings that result from the rubric correspond with intuitive or alternative means of evaluating the Inquiry Quotient of a WebQuest?

Evaluating the Evaluation of Existing WebQuests. Once you have rank-ordered the 10 WebQuests, it is time to compare the results of using your rubric to another measure of each WebQuest’s use of inquiry as a learning activity. It is up to you what alternative measure you will use. One option is to ask a few of your colleagues to rank-order the WebQuests according to their own criteria of whether they involve inquiry. Another option is to have a classroom full of students rank the WebQuests. A third is to compare your ranking to the rankings produced by the rubric created by another student in your class. A fourth is to find an existing rubric that evaluates inquiry and compare the results of that rubric to your own. If there are discrepancies between the ranking produced by the other measure and by your rubric, you will either want to revise your rubric or conclude that the other measure is not as good as your own (or both).

Evaluating the Inquiry Quotient of Your Task for a New WebQuest. The best tool for evaluating the Inquiry Quotient of the Task you created in the final step of the Process for this WebQuest is the rubric you created in step 2 and revised in step 4. Use this rubric to evaluate your task. Is it at the highest level? If so, you have been successful.

(See note about this Evaluation section)

Proceed to the CONCLUSION.

The IQWebQuest was created by Craig A. Cunningham
to accompany the book Curriculum Webs, 2nd edition,
by Cunningham and Billingsley (Allyn & Bacon 2006)
Return to curriculumwebs.com home page.