From Virtual Heritage Visits to Civic Problem-Solving: Authentic Assessment of Historical HOTS and Civic Reasoning among Indonesian Vocational Students
authentic assessment, civic reasoning, historical thinking, higher-order thinking skills, local heritage, virtual museum, vocational education
Abstract
Digital museum environments are increasingly used in history education, yet their assessment value remains under-theorised: many classroom studies treat virtual tours as motivational media rather than as evidence-rich stimuli for assessing historical reasoning. This pilot case-based study redesigns a virtual tour of Museum Prof. Dr. R. Soegarda Poerbakawatja, Purbalingga, as an authentic assessment ecology for measuring higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) and civic reasoning among 16 Indonesian vocational students undertaking internship placement. The assessment combined virtual artefact exploration, guided observation, a local heritage problem case, an analytic rubric, student written responses, field notes, and a 12-item post-activity perception questionnaire. Secondary descriptive analysis of the available questionnaire data showed a high overall perception index (M = 43.38/48, 90.36% of the maximum score; SD = 2.42; 95% descriptive interval = 42.09-44.66). The strongest dimensions were media use and independent engagement (both M = 3.76/4), while conceptual understanding was lower (M = 3.42/4), producing a media-activity/understanding gap of 0.34 points. Qualitative evidence mapping indicated that students could move from noticing artefacts to framing local cultural heritage as a public problem, evaluating preservation responsibilities, and designing vocationally relevant civic actions such as digital storytelling and community-based heritage campaigns. The study contributes a validity-aware model of virtual museum-based authentic assessment: virtual presence alone does not guarantee deep learning, but it becomes assessable civic-historical performance when mediated by explicit problem framing, evidence prompts, and analytic rubrics.
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