Historielärares klassrumsbedömningar : Innehåll och roll i ett historiedidaktiskt perspektiv

Sammanfattning: Assessment is a permanent part of history teaching, and the interest in assessment is highly current in the Swedish educational system. One aspect is formative assessment and feedback as a tool for learning; another aspect is that assessment tends to be more and more formalized.Earlier research on written assignments and tests show that history teachers often focus on assessing history knowledge as content and memorizing school textbook. Thus the risk is that history education and assessment does not correspond to the new curricula and rating scale with a wider range of goals.This study investigates the ongoing assessment in the history classroom, frequently entitled ”the black box”. Four history teachers in Swedish upper secondary school were interviewed about assessment, and their classroom assessments in a series of lessons were observed and recorded. The requested historical competencies in teachers´ questioning and feedback are interpreted through the concepts of the historical thinking tradition. Similarities and differences are discussed.Results show a great variety in questioning and feedback. Closed questions are present, but are not in majority, and encouraging feedback is more frequent than rejective. All teachers have the same principle – first order concepts or content come first, then second order concepts or thinking about the first order concepts. Among the second order concepts comparision stands as a universal tool to understand content and handle second order concepts. Cause and consequence combined with continuity and change (most focus on change) also appear to be common in the classroom assessements. More rare are historical persectives and significance. Most teachers consider the classroom assessment as valuable chances to get to know pupils´ history knowledge, but one teacher consider the ongoing pupils’ statements as far more reliable than the written ones, when it comes to grading.The over all result indicates that classroom assessments can involve more than history knowledge as memorized content like single facts.