Clarification details
Updated March 2025. Minor revisions have been made to reflect the changes that occurred to the standard at the end of 2024.
Preparing to carry out an inquiry – Explanatory Note (EN) 4
Identification of a topic at curriculum level 7 should be more than a simple title such as ‘The Vietnam War’. A brief abstract which is a sentence or two in length is expected. The identification could, for example, explain the nature of the context and/or why it is worthy of study.
Carrying out preliminary reading should allow students to be specific when identifying intended possible sources. They should be able to identify specific book titles and authors or URLs, for example, and be able to state quite specifically what evidence appears to be useful in those sources. Preliminary reading should also help to ensure that the focusing question(s) students develop are feasible and avoid repetition of evidence.
The focusing question(s) is expected to be discrete, open-ended, framed as a question, manageable, and lead to worthwhile research. Teachers can offer guidance to students when forming a focus question(s). Only one focus question is required.
Making annotations – EN 5
There is no expectation that every piece of evidence that is selected by a student will be annotated. Students can attain the higher grades by writing relatively brief annotations that are directly linked to specific, identified evidence and demonstrate their ability to think like an historian.
For Excellence, perceptive annotations are likely to be those that shift from being predominantly explanatory to evaluative. For example, while an annotation may explain the perspective captured in a source, a perceptive annotation may then evaluate the value or limitation of this perspective in relation to the research. Students might be expected to use these sorts of annotations some, but not all, of the time. Other types of annotations that are not listed in EN5 may also be acceptable.
Organising sources and evidence – EN 6
A variety of sources can be a variety of types of sources (e.g. a library, the internet, an interview) and/or a variety of sources of the same type (e.g. several books or several internet sites). Source details that are to be recorded need to allow for independent checks to be made.
Evaluating the inquiry – EN 7
Evaluations will typically include comment on several of the suggested topics, though there could be other topics as well. Evaluative comments are also likely to be found in annotations that a student has written, and they should be included in the evaluation judgement. The formal evaluation that is written needs to have detail, explanation and examples to support generalisations made, especially for Merit and Excellence.