Teaching towards historical expertise. Developing a pedagogy for fostering causal reasoning in history

Abstract

The present study seeks to develop a pedagogy aimed at fostering a student's ability to reason causally about history. The Model of Domain Learning was used as a framework to align domain-specific content with pedagogical principles. Developing causal historical reasoning was conceptualized as a multidimensional process, in which knowledge of firstand second-order concepts, strategies, epistemological beliefs and interest play a role. Five pedagogical principles (inquiry tasks, social interaction, situational interest, explicit teaching of domain-specific strategies and concepts, and epistemological reflection) were established and operationalized for causal historical reasoning. The effectiveness of the principles was explored in a lesson-unit concerning the outbreak of the First World War. A quasi-experimental pre-test-post-test study was conducted with two conditions in three 11th grade pre-university classrooms. Students in the implicit condition worked in triads on the inquiry task. Students in the explicit condition worked on the same task, but with explicit attention given to strategies, concepts and epistemological underpinnings. The results showed that first-order knowledge increased in both conditions, but students in the explicit condition acquired significantly more knowledge of second-order concepts and causal strategies. However, no differences were found in students' written explanations. Several possible reasons for this are discussed.

Teaching historical thinking and reasoning: Construction of an observation instrument

“…cause, change or evidence) and knowledge of how, for example, to explain or critically assess historical sources (e.g. Lee, 2005;Nokes et al, 2007;Stoel et al, 2015). It also requires the understanding that history is always interpretation (e.g.…”

An examination of gender and situational interest in multimedia learning environments

“…Among self‐reporting surveys, one of the most commonly referenced and used/modified instruments is known as the Situational Interest Survey (Linnenbrink‐Garcia et al ., ). Multiple researchers have used this instrument in an effort to investigate SI in a variety of contexts (see Allen, Muragishi, Smith, Thoman, & Brown, ; Corkin, Yu, Wolters, & Wiesner, ; Plass et al ., ; Stoel, van Drie, & van Boxtel, ), but self‐reporting methodologies invite criticism of reliability. In light of more advanced technologies developing in neuroscience, Hidi () called for integrating research across fields to better understand macro‐level questions of motivation, like SI.…”

Teaching historical contextualization: the construction of a reliable observation instrument

“…To answer such historical questions, students must link the Great Depression and the different types of governance to their historical context (Seixas 2006). Furthermore, the successful performance of different historical reasoning competencies, such as identifying indirect and direct causes (Stoel et al 2015), understanding change and continuity (Haydn et al 2015), reasoning with historical sources (Reisman and Wineburg 2008), and asking historical questions (Logtenberg et al 2011), requires an analysis of the broader historical context. Teachers should, therefore, create opportunities for students to practice these competencies with these types of questions.…”

“…Furthermore, to prevent students from viewing the past from a presentoriented perspective, teachers should explicitly model or scaffold how historical contextualization can be performed successfully, for example, by providing learning strategies. Explicit teaching of domain-specific strategies, such as how to perform historical contextualization, could promote students' ability to explain historical events (Stoel et al 2015). Reisman and Wineburg (2008) stressed the importance of explicitly providing students with an illustration of contextualized thinking, for example, by providing videos of good examples of professional historians who scaffold their contextualization processes.…”

“…Therefore, we formulated three items ("the teacher asks evaluative questions," "the teacher uses classroom discussion," and "the teacher uses group work"), focusing on more generic teacher strategies and different (social) interactions in the classrooms. We included these three generic items because history education research shows that these types of interaction could promote historical reasoning competencies (e.g., Brooks 2008;Van Drie et al 2006;Stoel et al 2015). Therefore, the total list included 124 items.…”