Assessing Historical Thinking: Challenges and Possibilities

• In Event: Assessment for Educational Accountability in History and Science: Beyond Recall

Abstract

The construction of valid assessments of historical thinking, usable at the classroom level yet meaningful beyond it, poses multiple challenges. This study maps early steps in constructing and validating assessment tasks designed to measure students’ historical thinking.

Two major challenges are immediately apparent. The first concerns the relationship between “content knowledge” (or what we call knowledge of the historical context) and “cognition” (or historical thinking). Students who know more about the particular historical context are bound to do better in thinking about problems related to and embedded in that context. Yet the aim is to measure something more than the memorization of factual knowledge. Secondly, while much of the performance on historical thinking tasks rests on a base of literacy competence, assessments must distinguish general reading proficiency from a more domain-specific sophistication in historical thinking. Traditional notions of “content” and “cognition” as defined, e.g., in NAEP and other assessment frameworks are inadequate for addressing these two challenges.

Our theoretical frameworks for assessment of historical thinking come from two directions. In history education research, historical thinking has been defined in terms of “second-order”, “procedural”, or, simply “historical thinking” concepts (Lee & Ashby, 2000; Levesque, 2008; VanSledright & Limon, 2006). In Canada, six clearly defined historical thinking concepts are ubiquitous in textbooks and curriculum documents published within the last two or three years (Peck & Seixas, 2008). In this study, we measure three of the six concepts, chosen for their conceptual proximity: using primary source evidence, taking historical perspectives, and handling the ethical dimension of history. On the assessment side, our theoretical framework is shaped by evidence centered assessment design: a systematic approach to designing assessments that are closely aligned with a student learning and cognition model and claims about student competencies (Ercikan & Seixas, 2011; NRC, 2001). The NRC’s “assessment triangle,” initially framed as cognition, observation, and interpretation, provides the basis for our investigation.

We conduct a mixed method validation study of tasks comprising 30 items in all, focusing on two different topics in British Columbia’s Grade 11 history curriculum. The study involves a large-scale administration of the tasks to 500 students, and an investigation of students’ (n=30) cognitive processes as they respond to the tasks using a think aloud protocol approach.
Analysis of quantitative and qualitative data from the study allows us to specify intermediate stages of competence in historical thinking, specify relationships and divergence among the three historical thinking concepts, and provide a base for examining progression in students’ competence in historical thinking longitudinally.

Though the particular tasks are aimed at a specific chunk of the British Columbia curriculum, their analysis will contribute to an assessment model that can apply to other topics in other domains. While the goal of historical thinking has become a staple of curriculum and teaching materials, to date, valid and reliable assessment instruments have not been adequate to support that goal, either at the classroom level or on a larger scale. This research begins to address that problem.

Authors

• Peter C. Seixas, The University of British Columbia

• Kadriye Ercikan, The University of British Columbia

• Lindsay S. Gibson, The University of British Columbia