Historical reasoning in an undergraduate CLIL course: students’ progression and the role of language proficiency

Abstract

In a study of undergraduate L2 students participating in a Content and Language Integrated Learning historical reasoning course, we examined students' changing performance on historical reasoning and how this was affected by their English reading and writing proficiency. Students engaged in written historical reasoning when answering a historical question by using sources and heuristics such as historical contextualization and corroboration. The course was designed based on principles likely to enhance historical reasoning and second language acquisition, and included an overt focus on language form. We found that students were able to reason historically at an emerging level of proficiency. The markers of historical reasoning present in their writing were neither significantly flawed nor highly proficient. A latent growth curve analysis was used to investigate the effect of students' English language proficiency on their source-based writing and the changes in their reasoning over the duration of the course. We found that students' English proficiency level did not predict either their reasoning or changes in their performance during the course. Students at differing levels of English proficiency improved similarly.

Historical contextualization in students’ writing

“…After completing the course, we found that students in both groups made significant progress in their written historical reasoning in all areas that we studied, which confirmed our first hypothesis. This increase in performance is similar to that found in an earlier version of this course (Sendur et al, 2020) and supports studies that have found that cognitive apprenticeship is an effective model for teaching historical argumentation and writing (De la Paz et al, 2014, 2017.…”

“…In the L2 tertiary context, the inclusion of the "circumstances surrounding the historical actor's actions" as evidence led to better essays (Myskow & Ono, 2018, p. 64). In another study of historical reasoning and L2 students' writing, contextualization was seldom evident (Sendur et al, 2020). Nokes et al (2007) found that high school students so rarely used contextualization in their essays that it could not be analyzed as a part of their intervention on the use of heuristics as a learning tool.…”

“…Student responses to the two writing tasks were scored using a five point analytical rubric from a previous study (Sendur et al, 2020 Wineburg, 1991). For each category, students were scored based on the highest level they achieved.…”

“…Fourth, the intervention was well implemented, and therefore, had a strong likelihood of success. Our scripted lessons and support for instructors, as described in the methodology, have been effective in this class previously (Sendur et al, 2020), and result in high fidelity to the curriculum. Finally, we have provided significant detail for others to also try to explain why the intervention was unsuccessful.…”

Epistemic beliefs and written historical reasoning: Exploring their relationship

“…These essays were scored by the first and second author on a five-point analytical rubric (Sendur et al, 2020) and in Appendix B. This rubric was designed to assess the aspects of historical reasoning taught in the course.…”