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Study Guide in SSE 115 (Assessment and Evaluation in Social Studies) Module No. 2

STUDY GUIDE FOR MODULE NO. ___

2

Roles of Assessment in The Teaching of Social Studies

MODULE OVERVIEW

Over the past several years, social studies have become a more visible school subject, and the
conception of learning social studies has evolved from doing and knowing to experiencing and
making meaning. The tacit and piecemeal curriculum that has long characterized the social studies
classroom seems to be gradually giving way to a more coherent and integrated set of objectives,
benchmarks, and performance indicators. This approach is goal oriented with an emphasis on learner
outcomes: the knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, and dispositions to action that teachers wish to
develop in students.

Ideally, curriculum planning and implementation decisions will be guided by these goals, so that
each element involved in the process—the basic content, the ways the content is represented and
explicated to students, the questions asked, the types of teacher-student and student-student discourse
that occur, the activities and assignments, and the methods used to assess progress and grade
performance—will be included as a means needed to move students toward accomplishment of the
major goals. In this article, we focus on the changing nature of social studies assessment and its
importance as a major curriculum component.

MODULE LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Identify the roles of assessment in the teaching of Social Sciences

2. Provide evidences of the use of assessment in the k to 12 grade school classrooms
3. Discuss validity, reliability, fairness, practicality, and efficiency
4. Manifest professional roles and responsibilities in the assessment of students; and
5. Explain the ethics in assessment.

LEARNING CONTENT

A. ROLES OF ASSESSMENT IN THE TEACHING OF SOCIAL STUDIES

Dozens—maybe even hundreds—of tests are administered to students over the course are
administered to students over the course of their academic career. Included are teacher-made tests,
state-mandated tests, psychologist-recommended tests, and assorted other tests. Why so many tests?

Educators are interested in answers to diverse questions as students progress through school. If they
had a “wish list” of questions they would like you, the student, to answer, a small sampling of the
questions on that list might be as follows:

How much of this course material have you actually learned?

Have you mastered the material in this course?
How does the knowledge you acquired in this course compare to the knowledge acquired by your
classmates?
Are you having difficulties learning any material, and if so, why?
How good is the fit between you and the educational program that you seek enrollment in?

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From the perspective of students, perhaps the most obvious reason testing occurs is to ensure that
knowledge being shared by the teacher (in the classroom, on the Internet, or however and wherever
teaching is taking place) has indeed been received and learned by the student. But educators are also
interested in helping students better their learning skills. Toward that end, educators may administer
tests designed to pinpoint possible areas of learning difficulty. There are other circumstances
wherein educators have a compelling interest in knowing the extent to which their students—or
prospective students—are prepared to learn more advanced material. In such cases, tests variously
referred to as “readiness” or “aptitude” tests may be administered.

While assessment is now considered to go far beyond testing, testing has always had a place in social
studies teaching, because evaluation is considered an integral part of curriculum and instruction and
because students must be graded for report card purposes. There has also been a mindset that if an
area of learning is important, it must be tested, and this has been applied not only to the basic skills
subjects, but also, social studies tests were seen as especially important.

National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) and leading scholars on assessment methods have
been arguing for assessment that is well aligned with major social studies goals, more complete in
the range of objectives addressed, and more authentic in the kinds of tasks included. It is hoped that
such assessments can meet the need for accountability while avoiding the possible narrowing effect
on the curriculum that current versions of high-stakes testing might have.

The NCSS Advisory Committee on Testing and Evaluation recommends the following guidelines for
assessment:

 Evaluation instruments should: focus on the curriculum goals and objectives; be used to
improve curriculum and instruction; measure both content and process; be chosen for
instructional, diagnostic, and prescriptive purposes; and reflect a high degree of fairness to all
people and groups.
 Evaluation of student achievement should: be used solely to improve teaching and learning;
involve a variety of instruments and approaches to measure knowledge, skills, and attitudes;
be congruent with the objectives and the classroom experiences of the students examined;
and be sequential and cumulative.
 State and local agencies should: secure appropriate funding to implement and support
evaluation programs; support the education of teachers in selecting, developing, and using
assessment instruments; involve teachers and other social studies professionals in formulating
objectives, planning instruction and evaluation, and designing and selecting evaluation
instruments; and measure long-term effects of social studies instruction.8

Several scholars have been arguing for alternative assessment techniques in response to concerns
about high stakes testing, accountability pressures, curriculum reforms, the needs of diverse learners,
and changes in teaching and learning (e.g., the blending of transmission and constructivism). 9 Also,
educators have been adopting the premise that assessment is a natural, indispensable part of
curriculum development, so that as teaching practices change, alignment requires that assessment
practices change as well. For example, two teaching practices that have been emphasized recently
are the constructivist approaches of cooperative learning and structured discourse.

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B. Recent Trends in Classroom Assessment

The recent trends in modern educational assessment grew out of the constructivist philosophy of
education. A constructivist sees a learner making new patterns or frameworks in order to explain
new objects and events. Each new construction is made possible by the available ideas and data.
Another possible reason for the birth of this new trend in assessment is the shift from unitary
intelligence to multiple intelligences.

One challenge for teachers using constructivist approaches is to ensure that students collaborate
thoughtfully as they strive to construct new understandings. Consistent with 21st Century learning
and the benefits brought on by better assessment tools, assessment is becoming more student-centric,
offering educators the insights that will help them determine the best instructional next steps and
how to make learning more personal for the individual student.

Assessment Trends in 2020: A Vision For Assessing Today’s Students

A continued shift towards formative assessment

Though a list of trends this may be, the growing practice of deliberate formative assessment is here
to stay. When educators embed frequent, in-class assessments into daily instruction they’re gathering
the data they need to identify student levels of understanding, target intervention, and evaluate their
instructional practices individually and across their teams.

Formative assessments, whether graded or ungraded, can and should be carried out in a variety of
modalities (i.e. paper-and-pencil or online quizzes, verbal cues, informal observations by the
teacher, etc), with each providing nuanced insights into student understanding that drive instruction.
Teachers and students begin to view assessments as informative rather than punitive. Differentiated,
ongoing assessments should address the varied levels of understanding that make up every
classroom. 

The power of formative assessment therefore lies not in the data but in how the data can be used to
inform teaching and learning

A shift from traditional grading to standards-based grading

“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” Goodhart’s Law

Traditional grading approaches provide letter and/or number grades meant to show a student’s
overall academic standing, yet this offers students, teachers, and parents little to no insight into what
the student has actually learned. 

Standards-based learning greatly benefits students by changing the conversation from “What is my
grade?” to “What do I know?” This seemingly subtle difference leads to not-so-subtle shifts in how
educators approach learning and address student levels of understanding. 

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When focused on what students actually know and don’t know, teachers and stakeholders realize the
need to identify deficiencies in a student’s learning, using these insights to adjust instruction.
Students can work to achieve mastery prior to moving on to more complicated skills and concepts.
Progression is now based on understanding and readiness, rather than by some other schedule
disconnected from the student’s needs.

More than just a tactic, the standards-based grading model supports the growth mindset behind
authentic life-long learning. 

A shift to more actionable assessment data

Among the shifting mindsets within K-12 education is the need for schools and districts to move
from a culture of collecting data to one of using data. Formative and benchmark assessments provide
data teachers can use, in the moment, to improve student outcomes. By upgrading the tech tools used
in the assessment process, teachers can simplify and shorten the feedback loop, becoming
increasingly accustomed to using data to drive their instruction. 

As teachers, schools, and entire districts find themselves using common platforms for gathering and
using formative and benchmark assessment data, all aligned to common standards, such stakeholders
are better able (and more willing) to collaborate around assessment data to support resource sharing,
instructional best practices, and larger learning trends.

A shift from end-of-level testing to alternatives

With the unacceptable results of high-stakes testing persisting each year, ESSA offered states much-
needed relief with the opportunity to replace end-of-level tests with alternative, ‘innovative
assessments.’

Among the alternatives being developed, breakthroughs in machine learning have allowed
psychometric models (i.e. valid and reliable) that reduce assessment seat times and improve the
quality of actionable data. These models can do far more to improve student growth while requiring
much less of the students, from a testing standpoint. It’s a win across the board, but most importantly
for the students and their academic growth.

A shift towards better assessment technology

Across the board, the world of education is growing accustomed to the presence of tech, even
coming to expect it as a part of the learning process. Teachers have moved from the question of
“Should I use technology?” (on an implementation-level, some teachers are against technology) to
“How can I integrate tech best, enhancing the learning experience without hijacking it?” Students are
increasingly comfortable with the myriad ways in which tech allows them to gain and demonstrate
skills and understanding. Even parents are expecting more frequent and extensive insight into their
child’s learning and classroom environment, accessing such insights directly from their phone. 

Whether it’s the mindset, the tech, the practice, or something yet unseen, what is certain is that
change will continue to impact our teachers and students in the classroom. When it comes to changes

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in assessment, we should always seek to better understand the needs of each student. Most
importantly we must always remember that if we solicit data from students, we have a moral
obligation to use that data to directly benefit those students. 

The goal of any change should always be to improve and make learning personal for each student…
that’s the change we like to see. 

C. Standards for Teacher Competence in Educational Assessment of Students

Developed by the
American Federation of Teachers
National Council on Measurement in Education
National Education Association

The assessment competencies included here are the knowledge and skills critical to a teacher's role as
educator. It is understood that there are many competencies beyond assessment competencies which
teachers must possess.

By establishing standards for teacher competence in student assessment, the associations subscribe to
the view that student assessment is an essential part of teaching and that good teaching cannot exist
without good student assessment. Training to develop the competencies covered in the standards
should be an integral part of preservice preparation. Further, such assessment training should be
widely available to practicing teachers through staff development programs.

1. Teachers should be skilled in choosing assessment methods appropriate for instructional

decisions.

Skills in choosing appropriate, useful, administratively convenient, technically adequate, and fair
assessment methods are prerequisite to good use of information to support instructional decisions.
Teachers need to be well-acquainted with the kinds of information provided by a broad range of
assessment alternatives and their strengths and weaknesses. In particular, they should be familiar
with criteria for evaluating and selecting assessment methods in light of instructional plans.

Teachers who meet this standard will have the conceptual and application skills that follow. They
will be able to use the concepts of assessment error and validity when developing or selecting their
approaches to classroom assessment of students. They will understand how valid assessment data
can support instructional activities such as providing appropriate feedback to students, diagnosing
group and individual learning needs, planning for individualized educational programs, motivating
students, and evaluating instructional procedures. They will understand how invalid information can
affect instructional decisions about students. They will also be able to use and evaluate assessment
options available to them, considering among other things, the cultural, social, economic, and
language backgrounds of students. They will be aware that different assessment approaches can be
incompatible with certain instructional goals and may impact quite differently on their teaching.

Teachers will know, for each assessment approach they use, its appropriateness for making decisions
about their pupils. Moreover, teachers will know of where to find information about and/or reviews
of various assessment methods. Assessment options are diverse and include text- and curriculum-
embedded questions and tests, standardized criterion-referenced and norm-referenced tests, oral
questioning, spontaneous and structured performance assessments, portfolios, exhibitions,

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demonstrations, rating scales, writing samples, paper-and-pencil tests, seatwork and homework,
peer- and self-assessments, student records, observations, questionnaires, interviews, projects,
products, and others' opinions.

2. Teachers should be skilled in developing assessment methods appropriate for instructional

decisions.

While teachers often use published or other external assessment tools, the bulk of the assessment
information they use for decision-making comes from approaches they create and implement.
Indeed, the assessment demands of the classroom go well beyond readily available instruments.

Teachers who meet this standard will have the conceptual and application skills that follow. Teachers
will be skilled in planning the collection of information that facilitates the decisions they will make.
They will know and follow appropriate principles for developing and using assessment methods in
their teaching, avoiding common pitfalls in student assessment. Such techniques may include several
of the options listed at the end of the first standard. The teacher will select the techniques which are
appropriate to the intent of the teacher's instruction.

Teachers meeting this standard will also be skilled in using student data to analyze the quality of
each assessment technique they use. Since most teachers do not have access to assessment
specialists, they must be prepared to do these analyses themselves.

3. The teacher should be skilled in administering, scoring and interpreting the results of both
externally-produced and teacher-produced assessment methods.

It is not enough that teachers are able to select and develop good assessment methods; they must also
be able to apply them properly. Teachers should be skilled in administering, scoring, and interpreting
results from diverse assessment methods.

Teachers who meet this standard will have the conceptual and application skills that follow. They
will be skilled in interpreting informal and formal teacher-produced assessment results, including
pupils' performances in class and on homework assignments. Teachers will be able to use guides for
scoring essay questions and projects, stencils for scoring response-choice questions, and scales for
rating performance assessments. They will be able to use these in ways that produce consistent
results.

Teachers will be able to administer standardized achievement tests and be able to interpret the
commonly reported scores: percentile ranks, percentile band scores, standard scores, and grade
equivalents. They will have a conceptual understanding of the summary indexes commonly reported
with assessment results: measures of central tendency, dispersion, relationships, reliability, and
errors of measurement.

Teachers will be able to apply these concepts of score and summary indices in ways that enhance
their use of the assessments that they develop. They will be able to analyze assessment results to
identify pupils' strengths and errors. If they get inconsistent results, they will seek other explanations
for the discrepancy or other data to attempt to resolve the uncertainty before arriving at a decision.
They will be able to use assessment methods in ways that encourage students' educational
development and that do not inappropriately increase students' anxiety levels.

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4. Teachers should be skilled in using assessment results when making decisions about
individual students, planning teaching, developing curriculum, and school improvement.

Assessment results are used to make educational decisions at several levels: in the classroom about
students, in the community about a school and a school district, and in society, generally, about the
purposes and outcomes of the educational enterprise. Teachers play a vital role when participating in
decision-making at each of these levels and must be able to use assessment results effectively.

Teachers who meet this standard will have the conceptual and application skills that follow. They
will be able to use accumulated assessment information to organize a sound instructional plan for
facilitating students' educational development. When using assessment results to plan and/or evaluate
instruction and curriculum, teachers will interpret the results correctly and avoid common
misinterpretations, such as basing decisions on scores that lack curriculum validity. They will be
informed about the results of local, regional, state, and national assessments and about their
appropriate use for pupil, classroom, school, district, state, and national educational improvement.

5. Teachers should be skilled in developing valid pupil grading procedures which use pupil
assessments.

Grading students is an important part of professional practice for teachers. Grading is defined as
indicating both a student's level of performance and a teacher's valuing of that performance. The
principles for using assessments to obtain valid grades are known and teachers should employ them.

Teachers who meet this standard will have the conceptual and application skills that follow. They
will be able to devise, implement, and explain a procedure for developing grades composed of marks
from various assignments, projects, in-class activities, quizzes, tests, and/or other assessments that
they may use. Teachers will understand and be able to articulate why the grades they assign are
rational, justified, and fair, acknowledging that such grades reflect their preferences and judgments.
Teachers will be able to recognize and to avoid faulty grading procedures such as using grades as
punishment. They will be able to evaluate and to modify their grading procedures in order to
improve the validity of the interpretations made from them about students' attainments.

6. Teachers should be skilled in communicating assessment results to students, parents, other

lay audiences, and other educators.

Teachers must routinely report assessment results to students and to parents or guardians. In
addition, they are frequently asked to report or to discuss assessment results with other educators and
with diverse lay audiences. If the results are not communicated effectively, they may be misused or
not used. To communicate effectively with others on matters of student assessment, teachers must be
able to use assessment terminology appropriately and must be able to articulate the meaning,
limitations, and implications of assessment results. Furthermore, teachers will sometimes be in a
position that will require them to defend their own assessment procedures and their interpretations of
them. At other times, teachers may need to help the public to interpret assessment results
appropriately.

Teachers who meet this standard will have the conceptual and application skills that follow. Teachers
will understand and be able to give appropriate explanations of how the interpretation of student

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assessments must be moderated by the student's socio-economic, cultural, language, and other
background factors. Teachers will be able to explain that assessment results do not imply that such
background factors limit a student's ultimate educational development. They will be able to
communicate to students and to their parents or guardians how they may assess the student's
educational progress. Teachers will understand and be able to explain the importance of taking
measurement errors into account when using assessments to make decisions about individual
students. Teachers will be able to explain the limitations of different informal and formal assessment
methods. They will be able to explain printed reports of the results of pupil assessments at the
classroom, school district, state, and national levels.

7. Teachers should be skilled in recognizing unethical, illegal, and otherwise inappropriate

assessment methods and uses of assessment information.

Fairness, the rights of all concerned, and professional ethical behavior must undergird all student
assessment activities, from the initial planning for and gathering of information to the interpretation,
use, and communication of the results. Teachers must be well-versed in their own ethical and legal
responsibilities in assessment. In addition, they should also attempt to have the inappropriate
assessment practices of others discontinued whenever they are encountered. Teachers should also
participate with the wider educational community in defining the limits of appropriate professional
behavior in assessment.

Teachers who meet this standard will have the conceptual and application skills that follow. They
will know those laws and case decisions which affect their classroom, school district, and state
assessment practices. Teachers will be aware that various assessment procedures can be misused or
overused resulting in harmful consequences such as embarrassing students, violating a student's right
to confidentiality, and inappropriately using students' standardized achievement test scores to
measure teaching effectiveness.

D. Properties of Assessment Methods

What's a "Good Test"?

Logically, the criteria for a good test would include clear instructions for administration,
scoring, and interpretation. it would also seem to be a plus if a test offered economy in the time and
money it took to administer, score, and interpret it. Most of all, a good test would seem to be one that
measures what it purports to measure.

Beyond simple logic, there are technical criteria that assessment professionals use to evaluate
the quality of tests and other measurement procedures. Test users often speak of the psychometric
soundness of tests, two key aspects of which are reliability and validity.

Reliability

A good test or, more generally, a good measuring tool or procedure is reliable. The precision with
which the test measures and the extent to which error is present in measurements. In theory, the
perfectly reliable measuring tool consistently measures in the same way.

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To exemplify reliability, visualize three digital scales labeled A, B, and C. To determine if they are
reliable measuring tools, we will use a standard 1-pound gold bar that has been certified by experts
to indeed weigh 1 pound and not a fraction of an ounce more or less. Now, let the testing begin.

Repeated weighings of the 1-pound bar on Scale A register a reading of 1 pound every time. No
doubt about it, Scale A is a reliable tool of measurement. On to Scale B. Repeated weighings of the
bar on Scale B yield a reading of 1.3 pounds. Is this scale reliable? It sure is! It may be consistently
inaccurate by three-tenths of a pound, but there's no taking away the fact that it is reliable. Finally,
Scale C. Repeated weighings of the bar on Scale C register a different weight every time. On one
weighing, the gold bar weighs in at 1.7 pounds. On the next weighing, the weight registered is 0.9
pound. In short, the weights registered are all over the map. Is this scale reliable? Hardly. This scale
is neither reliable nor accurate. Contrast it to Scale B, which also did not record the weight of the
gold standard correctly. Although inaccurate, Scale B was consistent in terms of how much the
registered weight deviated from the true weight. By contrast, the weight registered by Scale C
deviated from the true weight of the bar in seemingly random fashion.
Whether we are measuring gold bars, behavior, or anything else, unreliable measurement is to be
avoided. We want to be reasonably certain that the measuring tool or test that we are using is
consistent. That is, we want to know that it yields the same numerical measurement every time it
measures the same thing under the same conditions. As you might expect, however, reliability is a
necessary but not sufficient element of a good test. In addition to being reliable, tests must be
reasonably accurate: Tests must be valid.

Validity

A test is considered valid for a particular purpose if it does, in fact, measure what it purports to
measure. In the gold bar example cited earlier, the scale that consistently indicated that the 1- pound
gold bar weighed 1 pound is a valid scale. Likewise, a test of reaction time is a valid test if it
accurately measures reaction time. A test of intelligence is a valid test if it truly measures
intelligence. Well, yes, but…

Although there is relatively little controversy about the definition of a term such as reaction time, a
great deal of controversy exists about the definition of intelligence. Because there is controversy
surrounding the definition of intelligence, the validity of any test purporting to measure this variable
is sure to be closely scrutinized by critics. If the definition of intelligence on which the test is based
is sufficiently different from the definition of intelligence on other accepted tests, then the test may
be condemned as not measuring what it purports to measure.

Questions regarding a test's validity may focus on the items that collectively make up the test. Do the
items adequately sample the range of areas that must be sampled to adequately measure the
construct? Individual items will also come under scrutiny in an investigation of a test's validity. How
do individual items contribute to or detract from the test's validity? The validity of a test may also be
questioned on grounds related to the interpretation of resulting test scores. What do these scores
really tell us about the targeted construct? How are high scores on the test related to test takers'
behavior? How are low scores on the test related to test takers' behavior? How do scores on this
test relate to scores on other tests purporting to measure the same construct? How do scores on this
test relate to scores on other tests purporting to measure opposite types of constructs?

Other Considerations

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A good test is one that trained examiners can administer, score, and interpret with a minimum of
difficulty. A good test is a useful test, one that yields actionable results that will ultimately benefit
individual test takers or society at large. In “putting a test to the test”, there are a number of ways to
evaluate just how good a test really is.

If the purpose of a test is to compare the performance of the test taker with the performance of other
test takers, "a good test is one that contains adequate norms. Also referred to as normative data,
norms provide a standard with which the results of measurement can be compared.

Let’s explore the important subject of norms in the next module.

REFERENCES

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