Benefits of the Current Events Component in a Humanities Program

Abstract

Current affairs are an important part of social studies. Text books are of little value to the classroom, because they cannot keep up with the ever changing state of current affairs. The challenge for educators is to find an alternative that facilitates learning and interest. In this master thesis, the author examined a high school to see if studying current affairs daily had increased student’s interest in world events, if students maintained interest after completing two years of studying current events, and if the program improved students’ knowledge of current events. This study examined students from a suburban high school in the fall of 1990. Students in grades 10, 11, and 12 were separated into two groups: students who were in the Humanities program and those who were not. Students from each group were randomly selected and asked to take two tests. The first was a 16 question survey that evaluated students’ interest in current events outside of the classroom setting, and access to news media. The second test contained 12 multiple choice and three true/false questions about current events to determine students’ knowledge of current world news. None of the groups were found to have a significantly higher interest in current events or access to news media than any other group. The study found that tenth grade students who were in the Humanities program performed significantly better than tenth grade students who were not in the program. Eleventh and twelfth grade students who were in the Humanities program performed slightly better than those who were not, however the amount was not significant. All groups performed poorly on the quiz. The study concludes that students do not show an interest in current events outside of the classroom.