States Collaborate on Social Studies Assessment

Loretta Sullivan Lobes

Since 1990, when President George Bush called an "Educational Summit" of the nation's governors in Charlottesville, Virginia, the standards and assessment movement has exploded. Today, most states have legislated K-12 standards-based educational reform. The District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and every state except Iowa have adopted academic content standards for student learning in mathematics, English, science, and social studies. Now, states are turning their attention toward evaluating student learning with assessment instruments; so far, forty-seven states have committed to using assessments in order to measure student achievement against content standards.

Currently, twenty-five states have developed or are developing social studies assessments that include history. While history courses form the vast majority of the social studies classes offered in schools, history has only a limited role in social studies assessments. When states developed content standards, they incorporated history into social studies standards that also included economics, geography, and civics. As a result, history is being evaluated within social studies assessments. Frequently, social studies assessments limit historical topics to about twenty-five percent of assessment questions. Even in Virginia, where historical content dominates the social studies standards, history questions represent only one-quarter of the questions on the state assessment examinations.

Creating high quality, large-scale assessments in social studies, that include challenging questions about historical thinking and understanding, is a difficult task for state departments of education. Underfunded state education departments are struggling to fulfill state-mandated deadlines that require the measurement of student learning in social studies against standards. In order to produce assessment instruments, education departments may contract for items with educational testing companies, purchase assessments from textbook companies, or develop test items in-house. Other than the Educational Testing Service (ETS), which produces the U.S. History National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), history achievement tests, and advanced placement examinations for history, very few states or testing organizations have extensive experience with large-scale assessments in social studies. However, ETS is not currently working with states. Several states are purchasing social studies assessments from textbook companies such as Harcourt Brace or developing assessments with educational measurement companies such as American College Test or Advanced Systems. But textbook and educational testing assessments are expensive. Other states are developing social studies assessment questions with teachers, but this is a slow process because writing assessment items requires specific expertise. To answer the need for assessments at a lower cost and to acquire experience developing assessment instruments, a collaborative of states applied to the U.S. Department of Education in 1997 for funding to develop social studies assessment instruments. This collaborative, called the Comprehensive Social Studies Assessment Project (CSSAP), is comprised of the Missouri Department of Education, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), ACT Inc., and twenty-three state departments of education.

CSSAP, the largest social studies collaborative in U.S. history, received a $3.5 million multi-year grant from the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI); the National Institute on Student Achievement, Curriculum, and Assessment of the U.S. Department of Education; and the National Geographic Society Foundation. CSSAP proposed the development of a pool of social studies assessment items from history, economics, geography, and civics including multiple-choice and constructed response questions as well as performance tasks for portfolios. In addition to assessment items, the Project's CD-ROM and website plan to incorporate model social studies tests, resource materials for professional development, and portfolio assessment protocols.

CSSAP assembled a large taskforce to produce the assessment framework including individual items, professional development materials, and the CD-ROM. The taskforce also included an administrative team of CCSSO personnel, state social studies coordinators, and ACT advisors, as well as disciplinary scholars and teachers. Because state standards vary greatly, the administrative team engaged disciplinary scholars to help identify common themes and topics across individual state standards. Scholars used the national standards for history, geography, economics, and civics to assist the management team with the development of a consensus social studies framework that state coordinators could use to make teacher item-writing assignments. Referencing national standards helped to guide teachers toward evaluating student knowledge and understanding of major concepts. History assignments identified an era in United States or World History drawn from the National Standards for History and highlighted one of four themes: Change and Continuity in Political Systems; Interactions of People, Cultures, and Ideas; Economic and Technological Changes; and Comparative History of Major Developments. Then state social studies coordinators selected 135 outstanding teachers to create two fifty-minute assessment modules that included a stimulus, three multiple-choice questions, a short answer, and an extended response (short essay). Teachers also developed a performance task to be completed over several weeks, which required students to research and analyze a subject, issue, event, experience, or idea for an assessment portfolio. Disciplinary scholars served as consultants and advised teachers in selecting module topics and reviewing items that were scheduled for field-testing in 1999-2000. The Project produced over 1,300 social studies questions that ACT is currently field-testing and analyzing for validity and reliability. Performance tasks will be field-tested in fall 2000.

Even as field-testing items and assessment analysis begins, the CSSAP management team agrees that there are areas for improvement. Future projects should make teacher assignments more specific to either state or national standards. More extensive professional development in assessment writing and content knowledge is necessary for teachers before item-writing begins. Finally, future projects need to create a larger pool of assessment items.

In spite of some deficits, CSSAP is making a contribution to social studies and history assessment by demonstrating good techniques for states currently implementing large-scale assessments. By including several types of assessment items—multiple choice, constructed response, and portfolios—the Project demonstrates assessment methods that accommodate different learning styles and demand a variety of skills. CSSAP is promoting item-writing based on content standards and encouraging state social studies coordinators to work with disciplinary scholars. Involving ACT helps to ensure fairness and reliability for students. Also, the Project relates professional development materials to both assessment item-writing and content knowledge. By demonstrating multiple assessment methods as well as linking content standards and professional development with assessments, CSSAP is taking the first steps toward developing challenging, valid, and reliable assessment instruments for history and social studies.

As states struggle to create social studies assessments for K-12 students that document students' mastery of content standards, it is important for historians to be involved in assessment development and review. Only by being part of the assessment development team can historians ensure high-quality history assessment items and argue for an increased percentage of history questions on state assessments.