Best Practices in Social Studies 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  - 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
• Beyond the Bubble by Joel Breakstone
• Can Assessment Improve Learning? Thoughts on the C3 Framework

Formative and Summative Assessment

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

Standards-Based Grading

Standards-Based Grading Videos - A collection of standards-based grading videos and resources, including information in social studies specific practices for standards based grading.

Advanced Placement

The College Board Course and Exam Pages