QUALITY DIMENSIONS IN EVALUATING SOCIAL SCIENCES

INTRODUCTION

• Evaluation in social science must gauge what children have learnt in terms of concepts, rules and generalizations, and their ability to use this knowledge for problem solving and application in the real life situations. • The evaluation that measure lower

mental abilities like memory, retention and reproduction of facts/information should be discarded. • Rather higher cognitive skills like

Decision Making, Critical Thinking, Effective Citizenship, Problem Solving and Social Participation etc should be evaluated in social science testing.

TOOLS FOR EVALUATING SS

Tools

Open Ended Essay

Multiple Choice Items

Project/Assignments

Documentatio

n

Discussion /

Conversation

Portfolio

Interpretative

Exercises

QUALITY ISSUES

Neglecting Affective and Psychomotor Aspects

Using Traditional Type of Test Items

Not Use of Non-testing Assessment Tools

Making question suitable for all

Lack of Scorer Realibility

Tracking Students Progress

Providing Feedback

SUGGESTIONS• The HOTs, values and social skills should be

given more weightage in assessment. • Question paper should consist of well

prepared and different types of items. • The non-testing devices like projects,

assignments, group discussion, group work, portfolio etc can successfully be used. • Students reading and writing ability should

be taken into consideration while preparing items.• The items should have power to

differentiate students. • The choices for essay question should be

parallel to each other. • The evaluator should be given freedom to

score not on basis of model answer only but from their own understanding on questions

• The attitude and work habits of students need to be assessed in assignments and projects.• Analytical and Constructive Feedback to

students and teachers should be given on both cognitive and non-cognitive development.• Interest of students towards study of

social sciences need to be fostered by creating awareness about career options and necessity for life.• The capacity building programme for

teachers on assessment process in social science need to be organized regularly.• Questions can be pooled all year round,

from teachers, college professors, educators from other states and even from students (NCF-2005).

CONCLUSION

There is an urgent need to reform evaluation system in general and social science subject in particular. The nature of social science content demands more flexibility to students in answering and to scorer in scoring the essay questions.

The examination reform cannot be successful until it linked to teacher preparation and change of attitude of stake holders of education like parents, teachers, educational administrators, educationists etc.