Africa Student Interest Survey
I distributed this interest survey about world and African history in March at the close of our unit about the Middle Ages. Upon their completion of the fifty-point quiz on the Middle Ages, students took this anonymous survey surrounding their interest in various aspects of world history, their interest level in African history, and questions they have regarding African history. With just a week before the start of our unit about Africa, I wanted to learn more about students’ interests in this underappreciated area so I could plan an engaging unit. The first question about World History and social studies class as a whole is identical to a question I asked on a January interest survey. To review the results comparing January and March student answers to this question, please visit the Student Surveys page. Read the three-question survey distributed in March below:
After collecting the surveys and compiling student answers from all three of my World History classes, I formatted the results into a pie chart:
I was pleased to discover that most students were “pretty interested” in learning about Africa. Though few students reported that they were “most excited” about an Africa unit, I think students’ general interest stems from Africa’s underrepresentation across the school curriculum at large. In addition to learning about students’ interest level in African history, this survey also pointed me in the direction of modern Africa and African culture, through patterns in students’ responses to the third question. When asked, “What questions do you have about African history? What are you curious to find out?”, many students posited questions such as: “How modernized is it?”, “Are there still tribes?”, and “Are girls educated?” To build upon this demonstrated interest, I decided to heavily incorporate modern African voices throughout the unit in the hopes of maximizing student engagement.