NCEA Level 3 Social Studies cheat sheet

NCEA Level 3 Social Studies Achievement Standards

• Level 3 Social Studies is assessed through internally and externally assessed achievement standards; the externally assessed standard is a written examination requiring analysis of a contested social issue using conceptual and theoretical understanding.

• Achievement Standard 3.1 (carried forward in current Social Studies programmes) requires students to analyse a social issue from multiple perspectives, integrating social science concepts and explaining how power, values, and ideologies shape the issue.

• Achievement Standard 3.2 requires students to conduct a social inquiry into a social issue, using primary and secondary sources, and to evaluate the inquiry process and its findings against the original intention.

• Achievement Standard 3.3 requires students to examine how social forces and institutions influence people's lives, using concepts such as socialisation, social control, and social change.

• Achievement Standard 3.4 requires students to analyse a contemporary social issue in relation to a specific social science discipline (for example sociology, political science, economics, or geography) and its methods.

• Achievement Standard 3.5 requires students to critically evaluate sources of information about a social issue, including consideration of bias, perspective, reliability, and the social position of the author.

• Grades at Level 3 use the Not Achieved / Achieved / Merit / Excellence scale; Merit typically requires explaining the significance of the analysis, and Excellence typically requires integrating concepts and evaluating competing perspectives with supporting evidence.

• The key competencies (thinking, relating to others, using language symbols and texts, managing self, participating and contributing) and the Social Studies conceptual strands (identity, culture, and organisation; place and environment; continuity and change; the economic world) underpin all Level 3 standards.