Social Studies Assessment

Formative & Summative Assessment

What does summative and formative assessment in social studies look like in the 21st century? These resources provide examples of current trends in assessment and research-based ways of thinking about best practices social studies assessment.

• Social Studies Assessment White Paper (215.23 KB).pdf  (215.23 KB) .pdf - Outlines current research around social studies assessment. The paper also explores the challenges of classroom-based versus large-scale assessments and examines some existing models of thinking about assessment.
• Criteria for Procuring and Evaluating High-quality Assessments - Outlines a set of criteria for creating high quality assessments. Note: Some elements of this article are more specific to mathematics and literacy.
• Understanding What Children Know About History: Exploring the Representation and Testing Dilemmas by S.G. Grant (74.65 KB).pdf (74.65 KB) .pdf
• Beyond the Bubble by Joel Breakstone
• Can Assessment Improve Learning? Thoughts on the C3 Framework
• Beyond the Bubble - Unlocks the vast digital archive of the Library of Congress to create a new generation of history assessments. Developed by the Stanford History Education Group.
• Educating with Evidence - Southern Illinois University has created over one hundred assessments that use primary sources. The assessments are openly available.
• Optional Social Studies Performance Assessments - Assessments developed by the Washington Department of Education.
• Assessment Resource Center for History (ARCH) - A framework for assessment that measures the process of historical thinking, as well as the retention of prior knowledge. The ARCH features three assessment types: weighted multiple-choice items, traditional multiple-choice items, and performance assessment tasks.

Performance Assessment

Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE) - Provides several resources to support to schools and districts that have committed to adopting performance-based assessment as part of a multiple-measures system for evaluating student learning and measuring school performance. Some helpful resources include:

• Performance Assessment Resource Bank
• Scoring Systems in History/Social Studies: High Quality Rubrics (2.27 MB) .pdf
• Key Features of Well Designed Rubrics (1.49 MB) .pdf
• SCALE Checklist for Quality Rubric Design (112.62 KB) .pdf
• Quality Criteria for Performance Assessment in History and Social Studies (3.35 MB) .pdf
• Performance Assessment Quality Criteria (173 KB) .pdf
• Selecting and Adapting Performance Assessment Tasks (2.85 MB) .pdf
  Examples
  • Chinese Exclusion Act Document-Based Question (1.49 MB) .pdf
  • Drafting the Declaration Constructed Response (328.38 KB) .pdf
  • Federalism Today Complex Project (574.19 KB) .pdf
  • National History Day Complex Project (157.44 KB) .pdf
• Performance Assessment Quality Rubric (163.19 KB) .pdf
• SCALE My Quality Performance Assessment Template (54.19 KB) .docx

Advanced Placement

The College Board Course and Exam Pages