Political judgement competency among upper secondary-school pupils

Abstract

Within the discipline of political didactics, differing views exist on political judgement as the goal or content of classroom teaching. In this study, political judgement is understood as a competency. It requires situational deliberation and decision-making, but must also take into account political values. For this study, 401 upper secondary pupils in years 11‐12 were presented with a 45-minute judgement test. The pupils were asked to adopt a personal position on a specific matter in an essay, using argumentative deliberation. As in the lens model of judgement, they were required to adduce and evaluate different aspects under conditions of uncertainty, since no definitive information was available. In the test, five levels were used to assess the ‘complexity’ of a judgement. All previous tasks had to be solved before a higher level of complexity could be reached. On the basis of the assumed interdependencies of levels (tasks) in a testlet, the test was scaled using a testlet model from item response theory. All the testlets show significantly higher variances than the test as a whole. The test was able to produce a good total variance. The analyses of construct validity by means of fluid intelligence and subject knowledge conform to expectations. The test evaluated with the testlet model indicates that this can be assumed to be a multilevel process.