Skip to main content

Oregon State Flag An official website of the State of Oregon »

Oregon.gov Homepage

Social Sciences Assessment

Purpose

Oregon’s Statewide Social Sciences Assessment are administered as an optional assessments in elementary, middle school, and high school. Oregon public schools have the option of administering state, district, or locally developed social science analysis performance assessments.

​​Communication

  • Oregon Social Sciences Update & Newsletter

    The Oregon Social Sciences Teacher Update & Newsletter provides information about promising practices, professional development opportunities, useful tasks, and Social Sciences Assessment information.

  • Assessment and Accountability Newsletter

    The weekly Assessment and Accountability Newsletter highlights news, updates and changes to the state's assessment and accountability efforts.

​​

Oregon’s Statewide Assessment System (OSAS) currently includes summative assessments administered annually by subject matter and grade. Pursuant to federal and state accountability requirements, Oregon public schools test students in English language arts and math in grades 3 through 8 & 11 and science in grades 5, 8, & 11.

Performance Assessment Guidance:

Performance assessments must be a standardized measure (e.g., activity, exercise, problem, or work sample scored by a common scoring instrument, such as the official state scoring guides or another scoring guide adopted by the district) that is embedded in the school curriculum and evaluates the application of students’ knowledge and skills. Work Samples, scored using the official state scoring guide, are just one example of acceptable performance assessments. Districts have substantial flexibility when it comes to planning the performance assessments that will be used to fulfill this requirement.

In addition to the requirement areas, districts are encouraged to consider administering local performance assessments in other skill areas as appropriate to the local curriculum. For instance, districts may choose to administer local performance assessments in any of the other areas, such as Social Science Analysis.

Social Sciences Performance Assessment Resources​

The Oregon Department of Education has partnered with Oregon educators from around the state to provide schools and districts with access to a variety of Social Science Analysis Performance Assessments across the Oregon Social Science Standards at the elementary, middle school, and high school levels. These resources can be accessed by creating a school account.

Performance assessments must be a standardized measure (e.g., activity, exercise, problem, or work sample scored by a common scoring instrument, such as the official state scoring guides or another scoring guide adopted by the district) that is embedded in the school curriculum and evaluates the application of students’ knowledge and skills. Work Samples, scored using the official state scoring guide, are just one example of acceptable performance assessments. Districts have substantial flexibility when it comes to planning the performance assessments that will be used to fulfill this requirement.

In addition to the required areas, districts are encourage to consider administering local performance assessments in other skill areas as appropriate to the local curriculum. For instance, districts may choose to administer local performance assessments in any of the other areas, such as Social Science Analysis.

Essential Skills and Local Performance Assessment Manual
This reference document describes the requirements for Local Performance Assessment administration.

Sample Prompts

Topic Statements for Analysis Papers

Scoring Guides

For local performance assessments, districts may locally develop scoring guidelines so that they can provide feedback to students, or they may use the state Scoring Guide.

Social Sciences Scoring Guides
Includes State Scoring Guide and Student Language versions in Spanish and English

Additional Resources

​​​​​​

Overview

The following examples of student work were scored by teachers and are representative of student work that demonstrate the following achievement levels for social science analysis: advanced, proficient, approaching, and emerging. These papers may be used for teacher training, informational documents, scoring practice with students, or for other uses.

For more information about Oregon's Social Sciences Assessment, please contact Tony Bertrand.