Conocimiento histórico y evaluación de competencias en los exámenes de Educación Secundaria. Un análisis comparativo España-Inglaterra.

This article analyzes how historical knowledge is assessed in England and Spain in the exams taken by students at the end of Compulsory Secondary Education. For this purpose, a sample of incidental nature was collected with a total of 40 exams (20 for each country) and 400 questions. To analyze these documents, a database was designed with different categories: typology of questions; required cognitive level; concepts of historical thinking assessed. The quantitative data were exported to SPSS 19.0 with a view to analyzing the frequencies, percentages and the relationship between variables. The results showed significant differences between the two countries. While in Spain memory-based knowledge of facts, data and concepts continues to dominate, in England, the methodological aspects of historical evidence, source analysis, and historical argumentation are even more important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]