Designing assessment criteria for document-based history essays

Abstract

In Finnish history curricula, the paradigm shift from traditional teaching to teaching historical thinking and skills has been recently strengthened by the cross-curricular competence of multiliteracies which translates into teaching disciplinary literacies in all school subjects. Still, research shows that history teaching in Finnish schools is fairly content-oriented, and there is need to develop pedagogical approaches and tools for teaching historical literacy practices. In this study, we examine the process and product of design-based development of criteria for evaluating source-based history essays. The development process was realized as co-design with a group of history teachers in a mid-sized Finnish upper secondary school. First, we introduce the design procedure and compare different versions of the criteria to provide insight into the process. Second, using content analysis of teachers’ interview data we examine how the collaborative effort worked for the teachers. Third, based on student questionnaire data (n=32), we study how accessible the criteria were to students. Findings show that the co-design process offered a valuable opportunity for the teachers to reflect on their assessment practices and the criteria were quite accessible for students. The value and limitations of the findings are discussed.