By Juan Manuel Bentancor, Universidad de la República, Uruguay
The topic I am interested in researching, or at least one that catches my attention and prompts me to follow a line of reasoning, is assessment in humanities degree programmes. To address this, I make a fairly common distinction: on the one hand, the so-called hard sciences, where 2+2 equals 4 and assignments tend to focus on how the student solves a problem or applies a theorem; on the other, humanities degree programmes, where what is sought is something more difficult to define and which is not always clear when it comes to translating it into a mark. In this regard, several questions arise: is the student expected to recount a historical event? To discuss different historiographical schools of thought? To demonstrate good writing skills? Or to develop critical thinking?
In particular, I am studying History, and I shall speak from my practical experience within a widely recognised university programme. In this case, at the Faculty of Humanities and Educational Sciences (FHCE) of the University of the Republic. There, assessments take various forms: written assignments and mid-term exams, which usually consist of answering questions. In addition, there is what lecturers and the faculty’s own regulations refer to as a ‘reading test’.
What begins to raise doubts is the way in which many courses structure these assessments, relying almost exclusively on one or two assessments, which also involve a compulsory reading list. This creates a tension from a humanistic perspective: to what extent does compulsory reading, designed to be assessed, conflict with the principles of critical thinking or with each student’s personal interests?
Added to this is another aspect: how do we assess without discouraging students? At the FHCE, on the Bachelor’s degree programme in History, the graduation rate is very low, and those who do manage to complete their studies tend to do so over much longer periods than the four years set out in the study plan . This leads us to wonder whether those of us involved in the humanities should not rethink the way we assess. To what extent do we continue to uphold, perhaps without questioning it, a rather ‘Victorian’ model of the scholarly student, with unlimited time and sufficient resources to devote themselves exclusively to endless study and reading? This model hardly fits the reality of most students, especially in contexts such as our own.
And a sincere question is in order: who hasn’t heard, upon embarking on a degree in the humanities, comments from family members or even from the institution itself about the low salaries upon graduation, almost always in comparison with other university degrees? Without lying, but without raising excessive expectations either, this narrative emerges and carries weight.
In this context, assessment, in my view, should be as broad as possible, aimed at sparking interest rather than imposing an obligation on students. Because it is unlikely that anyone would devote years of their life to a degree programme that, from the outset, lacks social recognition from an economic standpoint. Or, at best, only a few will do so, creating a sort of closed circle of intellectuals. However, other aspects that society also expects of a university student, such as intellectual development, social commitment and the ability to interpret reality, are indeed fully developed in these pathways, although they are often overlooked in favour of other, more traditional assessment criteria.
