I could not help myself.

When a student posted a link on Facebook for “The Gay Test: A Fiercely Fabulous Test of Your Heterosexuality,” I had to take it. When the results were returned, I was informed that “You are 28% gay. You’re definitely not gay, but you could be a little straighter if ya know what I mean darling.”

The fact that I am “definitely not gay” might surprise some of my former boyfriends. But given the nature of “The Gay Test,” the result was not surprising. While “The Gay Test” relies on cultural stereotypes and is not meant to be taken seriously, students too often stumble across sources that are seriously flawed but which they do take seriously.

“That’s what my source said,” is a common response when a student is told that a piece of information is incorrect. Because they found a source that claimed that Dr. Berg is definitely not gay, they are confident in their assertion that Dr. Berg is heterosexual.

Students frequently do not critically question the material they are reading. Nor do they look for related sources to verify what they have read. If a single source says that Dr. Berg is definitely not gay, he must be heterosexual.

I do not blame students for their lack of rigor—at least not in the beginning of the semester. Instead, I know that I will need to both challenge them and to provide opportunities for them to improve their research skills.

Fortunately, challenging students to research critically need not be an awful task. For example, last semester I gave students a summary of Carl Theodore Dreyer’s Michael (1924) and a six question quiz about the film. All answered only four of the six questions correctly. When the students argued that according to the text I had given them, their answers were 100% accurate, I agreed with their assertion but said their answers were still incorrect. Unfortunately, the published source had been wrong on two points.

In a class I taught last week, I told students that we were going to produce a film called “The Gay Shoe Clerk.” Teams of students developed scenes which were presented in class. After their presentations, I showed the Edison Manufacturing Company’s The Gay Shoe Clerk (1903). The gay man in the 1903 film was, of course, a dandy who wanted to have his way with the ladies—not very gay by contemporary standards.

Next, I challenged the students by writing on the chalk board: “There were no gay people in the ancient world.” When students objected to this statement, I argued that the modern concept of homosexuality was not invented until the 1870s and that the modern concept of gay was a twentieth century phenomenon. Therefore, by definition, there were no gay people—or even homosexuals as we understand the term in the 21st century—in the ancient world. This does not mean that there was no same-sex sexual activity, but there were no gay people.

The quiz over Michael and The Gay Shoe Clerk activity were far more effective to teaching important research points than any lecture I could give on the need to consult multiple sources, that words change their meaning over time, and the need to avoid ethnocentrism.

In addition to challenging students to become critical researchers through active learning exercises, giving them the opportunity to read is the most important thing I do to help them become critical researchers. As a class, we go to the library where we spend time reading about subjects that interest us—not necessarily on the topics for our research papers. In fact, I initially refuse to discuss research topics with students because they do not yet have enough background to make a good decision. So they read. Eventually I help them morph their interests into acceptable research topics. And then they read some more.

Once I reviewed a course syllabus that required students to cite four sources for their final research paper. In my class, I would refuse to even discuss a research topic with a student who had done so little preliminary work. Possibly, after reading and discussing 10+ books, quality web sites, academic articles, and other resources, my students are ready to consider possible research topics before beginning their research.

Because I give them the time to read and take the time to discuss their reading with them, I rarely get papers that argue ludicrous points such as Dr. Berg is definitely not gay. Instead, students produce interesting analyses of complex topics that are anything but superficial.

–Steven L. Berg, PhD