The document discusses assessment methods in teaching history. It argues that assessment should be continuous and formative to provide ongoing feedback to students and teachers. Both summative and formative assessments are needed to fully understand student learning. Formative tools like observations, oral questions, group projects and VARK assessments can help teachers tailor instruction to student needs and learning styles. The goals of history assessment should be to evaluate students' abilities to recall facts, interpret sources, analyze information, and evaluate evidence from a historical perspective. Continuous assessment provides a more holistic and supportive approach to improving student achievement.

1. ASSESSMENT METHODS IN TEACHING HISTORY
MIDLAJ CH
AZIM PREMJI UNIVERSITY,
BANGALORE
INTRODUCTION
According to Colman and his colleagues (1966), student learning is an output that responds to
various economic inputs such as expenditures, facilities, equipment, and background
characteristics of teachers. In this model, the school is a non-opened black box (Adam Gamoran,
Walterg .Secada&Corab .Marrett, 2000). According to this metaphor Dylan William and Paul
Black say that the responsibility to know what is happening inside the classroom is not only to
teachers because first, it is at least possible that some changes in the inputs may be counter-
productive—making it harder for teachers to raise standards. Secondly, it seems strange, even
unfair, to leave the most difficult piece of the standards-raising task entirely to teachers (Wiliam,
1998). So I think the learning is a continuous activity so the assessment system should be
interactive with both teaching and learning, rather than a snapshot getting from summative
assessment it should be a continuous video type which enables the teachers getting the clear picture
of every student's ability and progress. So the importance of formative assessment with various
tools makes both experience and the achievement of learning much better. Teacher as a manager
inside the classroom can know what is happening to the student in cognitive social and emotional
levels.
Assessment methods of social science should be the reflections of the student learns and the
achievements of the learner on the objectives of the subject. The tendency of assessing children
merely for the grading or passing to next class, looking only the some of the learning areas, should
be discouraged. Today mainly social science subjects are assessed on the basis of the rote learning
and factual knowledge that the student has. But the social science subjects has a wide area of
objectives other than the prevailing notion of the subject, our assessment system sometimes fails
to face this problem and leading a wrong way of assessment. Both summative and formative
assessments should be prepared to help the learner to achieve maximum learning level by getting
proper facilitation and feedback from the teachers.
The assessment methods should be designed in order to enable each student as self-evaluator by
using methods and tools like self and peer evaluation methods. The ideal school assessment should
not be narrowed in labelling students by giving those grades. The assessment should be a clear
picture of the student achievement. According to the implementation of the CCE (Continuous and
Comprehensive Evaluation) the NCERT says that the assessment, a crucial element of the teaching
and learning process, is to be carried out for purposes beyond the measurement during the
instructional process which will engage and motivate the learners by emphasising progress and
achievement rather than failure and defeat (NCERT, 2016).

2. The importance of feedback is high in this model because a clear and qualitative feedback is very
helpful all stakeholders whether it is student or other related school committees. A professional
teacher can manage this avoiding all negative aspects of giving feedback like comparing between
two pupils or based on bias.
SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT
The summative assessment gives the idea where the student stands at a point of time like the end
term exam, which provides a measurement of where the student stands according to the curriculum
standards. This will give the information whether the student has accomplished the goals of the
unit in terms of knowledge and skill acquisition. As all the assessments need, here the desired goal
will be achieved by preparing good tools those are valid and reliable. For social science, it should
be standing to get the objectives mentioned in the curriculum. So rather than closed-ended
questions, it needs open ender questions. Because social science should be connected to the
environment of the child and his cognitive development so it needs good critical and analytical
ability on different sources of facts and evidence especially in history.
FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT
Learning is a continuous activity so the instructor should be eager about knowing the every
improvement and difficulty of the learner. This helps the teacher to improve the learner’s level and
reflect upon classroom activities that existed before and how to improve it after. The idea of
formative assessment gives a better idea about the student’s attainment during the learning process
in order to improve the teaching and facilitation of each student. The purpose of formative
assessment is to provide teacher and student with feedback that can direct future teaching and
learning (Myers, 2016). In these methods we can use formal and informal assessment activities as
tools in order to check the student level, it may be individual or group engagement or any method
that will give the desired objective of the child.
Continuous assessment makes the child to the stage of reflecting and analysing him/herself on their
level and progress. Assessment system like CCE if it is continuing in the school system it will
support for the overall the development of the learner because it is all-inclusive, cumulative and
diagnostic oriented that can be used to improve the progress of learners and develop self-awareness
amongst learners so as to progress 6 before it is too late. Consequently, the results obtained and
the feedback turns out to be more valid, reliable and more indicative of the holistic ability of the
learner (NCERT, 2016).
“The term ‘Continuous’ emphasises that the evaluation of the identified
areas of personality is a continuous ‘process’ rather than a combination of
isolated unconnected ‘events’; that it is built into the total teaching-learning
process as its integral part and is thus spread over the entire span of an
academic session. The second term ‘Comprehensive’ implies that it
attempts to cover different aspects of personality beyond the academic ones,
i.e. abilities, skills, qualities, interests, attitudes, values, outdoor activities

3. etc. and not just academic achievement. The third term ‘Evaluation’ implies
that the purpose of the total endeavour is not just the measurement of the
level of achievement and proficiency of students but also their improvement
through diagnosis and remediation/enrichment.” (H.S. Srivastava (2010),
Curriculum and Methods of Teaching, p. 66)
One thing to understand here is that the assessment should not be only for the recording data and
documentation of the test; above that the teacher has to give appropriate feedback to stakeholders.
This feedback should be qualitative and descriptive, with the suggestion that helps the learner to
scaffold the knowledge; otherwise, the value of the continuous assessment would be only like the
grading or awarding a rank based on the one-shot standardized assessment.
In this way, we can fulfil the dream of no child left behind because of lack of assistance and
inadequate mentorship by remediation and enrichment. Day today assessments, for example, the
oral questions and the response from the children varies from child to child so an experienced
teacher can understand why the child answered in a certain way and what supportive strategies can
I take to improve the learning capacity of the child considering how the child learn and which one
is the learning style of the learner from Visual, Aural, Read/write, and Kinaesthetic sensory
modalities that are used for learning information.
OBJECTIVES OF THE HISTORY ASSESSMENT
NCERT position paper says that the main objectives of the teaching social science in secondary
stage are
 to develop analytical and conceptual skills in order to understand socio-economic change
and developments in India and outside
 To see the social issues critically like poverty, discrimination, ideological wars, invasion
etc.
 to make a good citizen
So the history as the part of social science is interrelated with other subjects like geography,
political science/civics, economics etc. so teaching history should be considering this aspect of
an interrelation between and interdict. So the teacher should have vertical and horizontal
subject knowledge.
So we can say the objectives for history formative assessment will be
 To check the ability of the child to remember the interrelated timeline of events and
recognize the facts and evidence.
 To find the capability of the student to infer and interpret between secondary and
primary sources comparing the various possibilities.
 To detect the analysing capability of the learner by differentiating and organizing
knowledge.

4.  To observe the power of the pupil to evaluate and critique the information from primary
and secondary sources.
 To get the teacher the sufficient continuous and qualitative information about the
progress of the child in order to give appropriate feedback to the stakeholders.
The assessment should be conducted only after knowing the characteristics of the textbook and curriculum.
For example, the NCERT textbooks are designed on the themes so the assessment would be according to it
while other designs of deferent boards have their own allocation and categorization of textbook and teaching
materials. As the history is the one part of the broad disciplinary of the social science the teacher should
have the vertical and horizontal content knowledge about the interrelated subjects that the student learns in
his level; so that the teacher can connect the knowledge that child has and should be attained within the
certain period of time or academic year. Generally, the teacher in the upper primary is general to all social
science subjects even though the meta-cognition about the various aspects of the response getting from the
child will help him/her more to reach the real goal of the assessments.
SAMPLE ASSESSMENT TOOLS
There are many tools and techniques those are very useful in continuous formative assessment
methods like Observation, Checklists, Assignments, Checklists, Portfolio, Projects, Rating Scales,
Anecdotes and Cumulative Records, Photographs and etc. I have chosen some methods that are
useful in the assessment methods.
Tools and items of
assessment
Objective of the tool and items implementation
1. MCQs of VARK
assessment. With
16 items and 4
distractors for each
item.
This will help the teacher to find out
the learning method of each student
whether is it is by Visual, Aural,
Read/write or kinetic. This will
enable the teacher to develop
assessments and remedial classes
according to each child's capacity.
The teacher should understand the ability
of the child that which way he/she learns
using these capabilities. And use different
techniques and tools of activities for each
category until they are balancing between
these capacities. For this teacher should
observe other aspects of the learner also.
(Teacher can also use online websites
helping to develop the VARK MCQs)

5. 2. Oral assessment
based on pre-
defined questions
on previous
chapters in history
connected with the
current chapter.
This will help the teacher to
understand the whether the child
has the connection with previous
chapters which are connected with
the current chapter i.e. the instructor
can find how much the student
recall or remember from previous
chapters and how the idea is for him
with current chapter.
This lights into the student's ability
to recall recognise and
identify.(both knowledge and
comprehensive part)
This will help the facilitator make a good
idea about how to introduce the new
chapter. She/he can introduce different
pedagogy skills based on previous VARK
test.
This will be conducted individually or in
group of students as the teacher think
beneficial and feasible way to record the
response for analysing the qualities
mentioned in objectives
3. Group discussion
and presentation
on given questions
and clues of
pictorial sources
related to the
lesson.
The presentation
may be making
concept map,
presenting timeline
or summarizing the
discussion
This tool is designed to find out the
ability to interpret, clarify and infer
the facts comparing the primary and
secondary sources. This will guide
the child beyond factual knowledge
to the reasoning on the given
sources comparing between the
visual materials. The teacher can
also test the values and attitudes of
the children towards the given
material.
The teacher should supervise the
discussion and give them support on
leading their discussion successfully.
The teacher has to assess each group
according to individual contribution also.
The grouping will be on the basis of
VARK assessment to balance and develop
each student's ability. The teacher can use
the self-assessment and peer assessment to
evaluate the works.
4. Project work
This will be the
theme of the
chapter and
collectively
decided between
teacher and
students in
available context
and resources.
 This may be
after exploring
a historical site
which has
relevance with
past.
This will enhance the analysing
capacity of individual child by
giving him the opportunity to
explore himself in the activities.
This will give the child capacity to
investigate the historical facts sans
bias as he engages with first-hand
experiences.
The teacher can find the
observational skills of the learner
and to how he got the diversity of
our culture relating various social
science subjects.
The difficulty level will be according to
their capacity to handle. The teacher can
give some examples like collecting
pictures. Or preparing short assignment
visiting any historical place related to the
chapter.
The teacher has to make some preparation
for it and make the students aware of the
project, for example, the field visit can be
after generating questions from students
by active engagement of the teacher with
them. The assessment will be either oral or
written open-ended question which will
lead to more analytical questions.

6. CONCLUSION
We have discussed the various aspects of the assessment methods in history teaching. In total, the
history as a social science subject should be for the holistic development of the learner so the
teacher should have a better idea about the navigation of the teaching process. As we know a good
teacher needs 1. Good knowledge of the content matter 2. Content pedagogical knowledge 3.
Knowledge about the characteristics of the learner. So the knowing the learner only achieved with
systematic assessment system so he can arrange the knowledge in order to be effective for the
better learning outcome. So the misunderstandings about the assessment system like exam
orientation and labelling should be changed, to effectively use the system for finding the level and
difficulties of the student in understanding of the subject.
What we could understand here is that the social science assessment is one of the most difficult
parts for teachers because it needs good hard work enough time and hard work.
APPENDIX
1. SAMPLE OF VARK MCQs
http://vark-learn.com/the-vark-questionnaire/the-vark-questionnaire-for-younger-people/
2. ORAL ASSESSMENT SAMPLE QUESTIONS
I. Why Europeans started sea expeditions following the industrial revolution?
a. What were the technology influenced these voyages to discover new geographical
areas?
b. How this event influenced by political situations of the Europe?
II. What is mercantilism? How it affected on the competition between nation states?
a. How Renaissance affected the new beliefs and way of thinking?
3. GROUP ACTIVITY AND PRESENTATION

7. Every group has to present their opinions based on these pictorial clues connecting to the
historical facts and evidence analysing the pictures. It may be any kind of role play, theatre
or narration according to the resources of the school and students.
Activity for group 1
Activity for group 2
Activity for group 3

8. Bibliography
Adam Gamoran, Walterg .Secada&Corab .Marrett. (2000). Th eOrganizationalContext o fTeachin gan
dLearning: ChangingTheoreticalPerspectives. In M. T.Hallinan, Handbook of the sociology of
education (pp. 37-64). USA: springler.
Myers, J. (2016, 11 7). Assessment and Evaluation in Social Studies Classrooms: A Question of Balance.
Retrieved from www.learnalberta.ca:
http://www.learnalberta.ca/content/ssass/html/pdf/assessment_and_evaluation_in_social_stu
dies_classrooms.pdf
NCERT. (2016, 11 5). Exempler Package CCE Social Scince Upper primary stage. Retrieved from
www.ncert.nic.in/:
http://www.ncert.nic.in/departments/nie/dee/publication/pdf/CCE_SocialScience.pdf
Wiliam, P. B. (1998). Inside the Black Box Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment. London:
Granada Learning.