SBA GUIDELINES FROM NEW SYLLABUS
The School-Based Assessment component of the Social Studies Syllabus is a single
guided research project. The project should be on any topic drawn from the
syllabus. It may be based on social and economic processes, situations or problems
in the school or the immediate community.
Every school candidate or group for Social Studies is required to submit a report on
a problem or issue. Students may work individually or in small groups to investigate
a specific problem.
The report should not exceed 1,000 words in length and should include
appropriate charts, graphs, tables and pictures.
The teacher is required to approve the problem to be investigated, guide the
candidate during the process of investigation and mark the completed work in
accordance with the guidelines provided by CXC®. All marks are to be submitted to
CXC® by April 30 in the year of the examination.
SBA TASKS
In the report on the research project, candidates should:
1. state the research problem in an appropriate form;
2. give the reason(s) for selecting the problem or issue
3. select an appropriate method of investigation;
4. design a simple instrument to collect data relating to the problem or the issue;
5. describe the procedures used for data collection;
6. present data using at least three different and appropriate forms (for example,
pie chart, bar graph, tables);
7. analyse and interpret data with reference to the question asked in Task 1;
8. state findings; and,
9. make recommendations based on findings and suggest measures to implement
one.
SPECIFIC GUIDELINES FOR PROJECT WORK
1. Select a problem to investigate and write it as an appropriate question or
statement. No more than two (2) variables should be included in a problem
statement.
2. Explain why the area of research was chosen.
3. Select a suitable method to collect data and give an appropriate reason for
selecting this method. This may be a questionnaire, interview schedule, observation
checklist or documentary search.
4. Write out the exact questions that you will use in a questionnaire or ask in an
interview.
5. State how you will choose the sample. State the number of persons in the
sample, their gender, age group, area of residence or class, and explain how you
acquired the information from them.
6. Use at least three of the different forms, for example: graphs, charts, tables,
maps, diagrams, photographs as well as prose to present your data. N.B. Three of
the same form is not acceptable and they must be connected to the statements in
Task 8.
7. In the light of the question asked in Task 1, state what the data mean.
8. Write three statements about what you have discovered from your investigation
of the problem. The findings must be related to the data presented in Task 6.
9. Make two recommendations based on your findings and explain how you would
implement one. These must come from the findings in Task 8. The implementation
must be an outline of an action to be taken.
SBA PLANNING & EXECUTION
Dates for the following activities:
(a) submission of project coverpage- September 30th 2024
(b) description of project (two or more sentences)- End of 2nd week
October 2024
(c) completion of data collection- October 31st 2024
(d) submission of first draft- November 30th 2024
(e) project completion- December 30th 2024
SBA LENGTH
The length of the project should not exceed 1000 words excluding charts, graphs,
tables and pictures. In cases where the word limit is exceeded by more than 150
words, the teacher is required to impose a penalty deduction of 10 per cent of the
candidates’ earned score
TEACHER’S GUIDANCE
Activities that may be done under the supervision of the Class Teacher and signed
off as they are completed:
(a) Statement of Problem – explaining context - one paragraph and at least one
question.
(b) Method of investigation – questionnaire, interview schedule, observation
checklist, document search.
(c) Questionnaire construction.
(d) Administering questionnaire, recording raw data (in class); students may work in
pairs.
(e) Analysing questionnaire data, using univariate tables, bivariate tables,
multivariate tables.
(f) Interpretation of the data (in terms of the research question), identifying validity
issues – size of sample, type of sample, instrument limitations.
PRESENTATION OF SBA
(b) The student’s/students’ name(s) and registration number(s), title of the study
and the name of the school should be clearly written on the outside of the folder
AND on the FIRST page.
c) A table of contents should be included at the beginning of the report.
(d) The presentation, handwritten or typed, should be neat, legible and arranged in
order of the task. It may be technologically aided but marks will be awarded on the
same basis as outlined in the table below.
(e) All illustrations should be placed appropriately in the body of the text
