Changes to M-STEP Reporting

Beginning with Spring 2026, MDE no longer provides the Expectation Analysis Report for Social Studies. Instead, results are reported by broader content disciplines rather than individual standards.

The old report could give a misleading picture of student learning. An individual content expectation might have been assessed by only one question on the M-STEP. If a student missed that question, it didn't necessarily mean they didn't understand the content. Likewise, answering it correctly didn't necessarily mean they had mastered it.

Even when results were combined at the school level, the percentages could appear more precise and meaningful than the evidence justified. There simply weren't enough questions about each standard to draw reliable conclusions about what students knew or could do.

The problem comes when we use those results to make instructional decisions. A low score on a particular standard might lead teachers to devote additional instructional time to content students already understand. A high score might lead them to give less attention to content students haven't actually mastered.

There's also a practical problem: By the time teachers receive the results, those students have moved on. Next year, they'll be teaching a different group of 5th, 8th, or 11th graders, whose learning needs may be quite different.

The Demographic Subscore Report now provides performance indicators for the broader Social Studies disciplines: World History, U.S. History, Michigan History, Geography, Civics, and Economics, as applicable to each tested grade.

Because these indicators are based on multiple questions within each discipline, they provide a more useful picture of students' relative strengths and weaknesses.

For example, a school might discover that its students perform relatively better in Civics than in Geography. That could prompt a useful conversation about curriculum, instruction, and opportunities to learn in those disciplines.

Teachers sometimes ask which Social Studies standards appear most frequently on M-STEP so they can prioritize those topics.

Questions are randomly selected from a pool of educator-approved test items. Although the test blueprint establishes how many questions are devoted to each discipline, students' recollections of particular topics—even across multiple years—aren't reliable evidence that certain individual standards are more likely to appear.

There are no secret "power standards" to target. The Michigan Social Studies Standards, rather than predictions about specific test questions, should guide instruction.

Rather than trying to anticipate which facts or topics might appear on the test, focus on helping students develop the knowledge and disciplinary thinking they'll need throughout Social Studies.

That means building opportunities into lessons for students to read and interpret historical sources, consider context, corroborate evidence, evaluate claims, and construct arguments supported by evidence.

These shouldn't be isolated activities reserved for a special inquiry unit. Historical thinking and disciplinary literacy should be part of everyday Social Studies instruction.

Students who regularly practice these skills are better prepared to make sense of unfamiliar sources, questions, and problems—whether they encounter them in the classroom, on an assessment, or as informed citizens.

Want help bringing these practices into your classroom? Reach out to me! I'm happy to help you find resources, explore instructional strategies, or think through ways to incorporate historical thinking and disciplinary literacy into your lessons.

Your administrator or assessment coordinator can access the Demographic Subscore Report through the Dynamic Score Reporting Site. Select Spring 2026 Social Studies results for your grade.

For more information:

• M-STEP Summative Assessment page — Assessment information and resources from MDE.

• Spring 2026 Interpretive Guide to M-STEP Reports — Detailed guidance on understanding assessment results.

• Marianne French, MDE Social Studies Consultant — FrenchM3@michigan.gov for questions about the assessment.