QCE Modern History IA2 independent source investigation: the 2026 guide

What this guide is for

QCE Modern History IA2 is a major Unit 3 assessment (25 percent). Strong IA2 requires a precisely framed key inquiry question with 3-5 sub-questions, careful selection of 4-6 primary and secondary sources NOT studied in class, rigorous OPCVR evaluation of each, and a synthesised critical summary of evidence. This guide covers each step.

Format

• Word count. 1500-2000 words.
• Duration. Conducted over several weeks during Unit 3.
• Sources. 4-6 sources, mix of primary and secondary, none previously studied in class.
• Structure. Key inquiry question with 3-5 sub-questions, followed by a critical summary of evidence.
• Worth. 25 percent of subject result.

Key inquiry question

Specific, testable, with multiple perspectives possible. Sits within the Unit 3 national experience your school is teaching (most commonly Australia 1914 to 1949).

Strong examples:

• "To what extent did the 1916 and 1917 conscription debates expose existing fault lines in Australian society?"
• "How significant was the fall of Singapore in February 1942 for Australian strategic policy under Curtin?"
• "What role did the Depression of 1929 to 1939 play in reshaping Australian women's paid employment?"

Weak examples:

• "What caused Australian division during the First World War?" (too broad)
• "Was Curtin a good wartime leader?" (yes/no, too vague)

Sub-questions (3 to 5)

A strong IA2 turns the key inquiry question into 3-5 sub-questions that the investigation will answer. For the conscription example:

• What were the political alignments for and against conscription in 1916?
• How did Catholic-Protestant tensions surface in the No campaign?
• What role did organised labour play in the second referendum?
• How did regional and class differences shape the No vote pattern?

The sub-questions structure the source search and the critical summary that follows.

Source selection

4-6 sources, none studied in class, with a balanced mix of primary and secondary.

Primary sources to consider (Unit 3 Australia 1914 to 1949):

• Hansard speeches on the conscription bills (1916, 1917).
• Daniel Mannix's anti-conscription speeches (1916, 1917).
• Recruitment posters and government propaganda from the period.
• Press editorials from the Catholic and labour press.
• The 1916 and 1917 referendum results broken down by state and electorate.

Secondary sources to consider:

• Joan Beaumont (Broken Nation, 2013) - revisionist on home-front division.
• Stuart Macintyre (A Concise History of Australia) - mainstream historiography.
• Manning Clark (A History of Australia, vol VI) - nationalist tradition.
• Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds (What's Wrong with Anzac?, 2010) - postcolonial reframing.

Each source should genuinely contribute to one or more of your sub-questions.

OPCVR for each source

For every source you cite, apply OPCVR systematically:

Origin

Who? When? Where?

Purpose

Why? For what audience?

Context

Broader historical situation?

Value

What does it tell us about the question?

Reliability

How trustworthy? What limits?

Report structure

A reliable structure for the critical summary of evidence:

Introduction (around 150 words)

State the key inquiry question. List the 3-5 sub-questions. Briefly preview the source set and the lines of evidence.

Body 1 (around 350 words)

First sub-question. 1-2 sources cited and evaluated with OPCVR.

Body 2 (around 350 words)

Second sub-question. New sources or new aspects of prior sources.

Body 3 (around 350 words)

Third sub-question. Different perspective or aspect; engage where sources disagree.

Critical summary of evidence (around 300 words)

Bring the sources together across sub-questions. Reach a calibrated answer to the key inquiry question. Note where the evidence is contested or incomplete.

Conclusion (around 100 words)

Direct answer to the key inquiry question with a calibrated judgement.

References

Full citations.

Historiographical engagement

IA2 expects engagement with historiographical debate.

Cite specific historians. Identify the school they represent. Acknowledge contestability.

Example: "While the nationalist tradition (represented by Manning Clark) treats the conscription debates as a temporary disturbance to a unifying war effort, Joan Beaumont (Broken Nation, 2013) reframes them as evidence of pre-existing fault lines (Catholic-Protestant, urban-rural, class) that the war made visible rather than created. Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds add a further reframing by positioning the Anzac tradition alongside the simultaneous violence of the frontier wars."

A worked critical summary

The five sources together reveal that the 1916 and 1917 conscription debates exposed structural divisions within Australian society rather than creating them. Source 1 (Hansard, October 1916) demonstrates the formal Labor split over the first plebiscite; Source 2 (Mannix's December 1917 speech) shows the Irish-Catholic dimension of the No campaign articulated from the pulpit. Source 3 (Beaumont 2013) and Source 4 (Macintyre 2020) provide differing secondary interpretations, with Beaumont emphasising the depth of the division and Macintyre situating it within a longer pattern of sectarian politics. Source 5 (regional referendum returns) corroborates that the No vote concentrated in working-class urban electorates and Catholic-majority rural ones. Synthesising across the primary and secondary sources, this investigation concludes that the conscription debates were a stress test in which existing cleavages (sectarian, class, regional) became operationally visible; the war did not so much fracture Australian political life as expose how fractured it already was.

A critical summary of this kind integrates multiple sources with named historians, recognises historiographical contestability, and reaches a calibrated answer to the key inquiry question.

Marking criteria

QCAA marks IA2 against five published criteria:

1. Devising historical questions and conducting research (5 marks). A specific key inquiry question with 3-5 sub-questions, supported by purposeful research.
2. Analysing historical sources and evidence (5 marks). OPCVR evaluation of each source.
3. Synthesising evidence (5 marks). Evidence brought together across sources, not described one by one.
4. Evaluating historical interpretations (5 marks). Named historians; competing schools engaged.
5. Creating a response that communicates meaning (5 marks). Clear structure, accurate citations, complete bibliography.

Top band requires excellence across all five criteria.