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Paper Summary

Historical Frameworks to Guide Research and Design

Sat, April 14, 2:15 to 3:45pm, Sheraton Wall Centre, Floor: Third Level, North Junior Ballroom D

Abstract

Purposes: This paper describes the development of core constructs in history and their instantiation as student outcomes. It also shows how these constructs and research informed the creation of design principles for interventions.

Perspectives: Understanding the discipline of history is an important but often neglected element in students’ comprehension of historical texts (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008). Historians construct claims about change over time in spheres such as politics and economics derived from interpretations of the multiple sources they choose. These interpretations are approximations that are contestable. Knowing that, historians process texts as arguments—looking for potential biases regarding the source and context of information, checking levels of corroboration, etc. (Wineburg, 1991). Students are rarely taught these historical perspectives.

Methods: A team including historians, learning scientists, reading researchers, teacher educators, history teachers, and 6-12 administrators specified a set of core constructs in history. This team read relevant research and theory (e.g., Ashby, Gordon, & Lee, 2011; Lee, 2004; Levstik & Barton, 2005; Rouet, Britt, & Perfetti, 1997, Wineburg 1991) along with current sets of academic standards, creating several iterations of the constructs to ensure the ideas in these resources were represented, the team agreed on them, and they offered a unique extension of current constructs. They shared the document with other teams and with the Reading for Understanding initiative. The team then used it and the Common Core Standards (CCSSO, 2010) to guide construction of outcomes for 6th-12th graders. Finally, the team used these and insights gained from research to develop design principles for interventions.

Substantiated Conclusions or Warrants: The history team converged on the categories of constructs in Table 1. As instantiated for history, a unique epistemological construct was, “historical empathy—interpreting past actions in context of patterns and beliefs and values existing at the time.” The constructs were used to develop outcomes to help students, “answer a historical question using evidence from multiple sources and diverse formats that they have evaluated for credibility and relevance” (an amalgam of History/Social Studies Common Core Standards 7, 8, and 9). For example, a 12th grade epistemological outcome was: “Students interpret evidence as always being within its historical context, which is characterized by place, time, and source.” Evidence from initial studies (Presentation 5, this symposium) and other research was then used to identify a smaller set of outcomes that could be taught, such as outcomes about sourcing. The studies and constructs also informed design principles for intervention development. As interventions are created, they will be field-tested and the focal point for efficacy studies. As additional cognitive process and efficacy studies are conducted, the outcomes and design principles will go through various revisions.

Significance: This work is significant because (1) reading for understanding is instantiated as argumentation within history, (2) the constructs of that discipline guide cognitive process studies and the development and testing of interventions recursively, and (3) the project refines and extends what it means to read history and to teach others to read it.

Authors