prompt n.

[victor steinbok]

It's tempting to say that the testing use of "prompt" has been
influenced by technology (from Command Prompt), in which case this OED
entry would be related. I am not convinced, however, that this is how
it came into being--it does sound like it had more Behaviorist
origins.

> c. Computing. A word, symbol, or message automatically displayed on a screen to indicate that input  is required from the user.

> 1977 Computer-Aided Design 9 151 Displaying and responding to prompts from the computer. 1985 Which Computer? Apr. 51/2Prompts and help messages reduce the possibility of making an error in the first place. 1992 Broadcasting 27 Jan. 35/2 An on-screen prompt encourages viewers to enter the names of household members viewing a given program. 2000 Daily Tel. 16 Mar. (Connected section) 14/2 Exit Windows to DOS mode..and change to drive letter A by typing A: at the C:> (or C:\\WINDOWS>) prompt.

For example, consider the lines

> Identify the key words in a test prompt.

and

> Identify the key words from a test prompt.

and

> Focus on the key words in the prompt!

in the chapter Writing to a Prompt, in Winning Strategies for Test Taking.
http://books.google.com/books?id=92Lq_j-HUqcC

The book even identifies the type of questions that should be used in
training students--the "released writing to a prompt questions".

This is quite pervasive. I just grabbed the first book that popped up
on the list.

VS-)


On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 1:30 PM, Gordon, Matthew J.
<GordonMJ at missouri.edu> wrote:
>
> "prompt" is also common in rhetoric/composition contexts.
>
> -Matt Gordon
>
>
> On 3/15/10 12:24 PM, "victor steinbok" <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
> In psychometrics, the body of a multiple-choice question is usually referred
> to as "the prompt", but ed publishers call it "stem" or "root" with the
> answer choices all referred to as "distractors" (even though one of them is
> supposed to be correct). ;-) The editors I've worked with sometimes would
> differentiate between the "question stem" and "prompt", the latter being a
> general comment that applied to multiple questions, including instructions.
> This seems reverse of what test specialists use, but these two groups rarely
> talk to each other. But it can get very confusing if you work with both...
>
> VS-)
>
> On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 12:35 PM, Charles Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
>
> >
> > Typically, when I assign a paper to a class, I will write out and
> > distribute several sentences of instructions and advice.  All of a sudden
> > (it seems to me), my students are referring to such a document as "the
> > prompt." (I would call it simply "the assignment"--or maybe, if I wanted to
> > sound informal, "the specs").
> >
> > When asked about the term, some of my students associate it with their AP
> > classes in high school. Is it a (behaviorist?) term that emanates from
> > colleges of education? The use doesn't match any of the entries for _prompt_
> > n.2 in the OED.
> >
> > --Charlie

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