Celine Oon (Curriculum Planning and Development Division, Ministry of Education (Singapore)
Bertrand Tan (Curriculum Planning and Development Division, Ministry of Education (Singapore))

Keywords
History
Assessment

Introduction
Identifying students’ learning gaps is often a challenge for Pre-University History teachers. Besides generic formative assessment strategies such as teacher questioning, think-pair-share and student reflection, formative assessments carried out at the A-Levels also involve getting students to discuss or write essays in response to past year history examination questions. While these tasks provide teachers with some sense of how students are able to manage question items in the A-Level History examination, how much do these essays or Source-based Case Study (SBCS) assignments tell teachers about students’ understanding of historical concepts and skills?[i] Furthermore, how helpful are these assignments in informing the next steps of instruction?

Generally, many pre-University history teachers recognize the value of formative assessment in supporting teaching and learning. Knowing where students ‘are at’ at significant junctures of the learning process can help teachers decide what to do to close students’ learning gaps (Wiliam, 2011). However, in the absence of formative assessments that can be quickly implemented and targeted to elicit information on students’ knowledge of historical concepts and skills, teachers often end up using summative assessment for formative purposes.

Yet, to meet formative assessment objectives, dealing mainly with A-Level History examination questions may have limited utility. The first issue is that lengthy essays make it difficult for teachers to quickly identify particular skills or concepts that need further attention (Breakstone, 2014). The second issue relates closely to the purpose of the assessment. Specifically, A-Level History examination questions require students to synthesize component skills in the course of answering them. Yet, a student’s response to A-Level History examination questions offers little or limited information on precisely where the student’s strengths and weaknesses lie and do not serve as an effective compass pointing teachers towards appropriate instructional interventions. As put forth by the National Research Council (NRC) in Knowing What Students Know: The Science and Design of Educational Assessment, “…the more purposes a single assessment aims to serve, the more each purpose will be compromised” (National Research Council [NRC], 2001: 2).