Assessing interdisciplinary understanding: Disciplinary crossroads in the international baccalaureate middle years Programme

Abstract Assessing interdisciplinary learning within school curricula remains a persistent challenge in educational research. Difficulties in articulating shared assessment criteria, alongside differing disciplinary and pedagogical perspectives, have contributed to ongoing uncertainty around how interdisciplinary learning should be evaluated. This study explores interdisciplinary assessment in the International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Programme (MYP) where teachers are required to design, implement and assess one interdisciplinary unit involving two or more subjects in each year of the five‐year curriculum. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 15 teachers from six MYP international schools in Germany and Switzerland to examine their beliefs and experiences around assessment practices. The data were analysed using thematic analysis and revealed a wide range of perspectives on interdisciplinary assessment. Drawing on Veronica Boix‐Mansilla’s well‐establisehd framework for assessening, interdisciplinary student work, this study focused on three core elements: disciplinary grounding, integrative leverage and critical stance. Despite the framework's continued influence, the findings suggest that these elements remain challenging to implement in practice. Teachers' accounts reveal significant tension, frustration and dissatisfaction, particularly in relation to workload, clarity of expectations and assessment validity. This study offers insights for current MYP schools into the pedagogical challenges around assessing interdisciplinary learning and suggests the need for clearer guidance and stronger institutional support to enable teachers to evaluate interdisciplinary curricula more effectively.