Teaching Causal Reasoning in History: The Effects of Explicit Teaching and Epistemological Reflection in Developing Historical Expertise

• In Event: Roundtable Session 7
  In Roundtable Session: A Janus Head or the Same Side of the Medallion? Innovating and Improving Historical Reasoning and Understanding

Abstract

Although historical reasoning has become an important educational goal, classroom studies focussing on instructional approaches to develop historical reasoning are still largely lacking. We define historical reasoning as an activity in which a person constructs a description of processes of change and continuity, an explanation of a historical phenomenon or a comparison of historical phenomena or periods (Van Drie & Van Boxtel, 2008). We conceptualise developing historical reasoning as an activity in which first order (topic) knowledge, second order (meta-) knowledge, historical reasoning strategies and epistemological beliefs all play a role (VanSledright & Limón, 2006). Building on theories of the development of domain-specific expertise (Alexander, 2003, 2005) we hypothesize explicit instruction of meta-concepts and strategies, and epistemological reflection to be important principles for fostering this development. This expectation is corroborated by two experimental studies in history education (Nokes, Dole, & Hacker, 2007; Reisman, 2012).
The central research question is: what are the effects of explicit instruction on causal meta-concepts and strategies and epistemological reflection on (a) the development of causal reasoning skills, (b) the acquisition of historical (topic, meta, strategy) knowledge and (c) the epistemological beliefs of 11th-grade pre-university students. Data was collected in a quasi-experimental pre-test–post-test design, with two experimental groups and a control group. Participants were about 75 students; three classes from one school. The intervention focussed on causes for the outbreak of the First World War and lasted for ten lessons of 45-minutes. In the first experimental condition causal reasoning strategies were explicitly taught (strategy-condition). The second experimental condition combined this approach with epistemological reflection (strategyplus-condition). In the control group students were taught about the same topic, but without explicit strategy instruction and epistemological reflection. Measurements included: a first and second order knowledge test, a causal writing task, an epistemological beliefs questionnaire (Maggioni, 2010), and a causal beliefs questionnaire.
Preliminary analyses suggest an increase of first order knowledge between pre- and post-test, however no differences between groups were found. Both experimental groups scored significantly higher on the second order knowledge post-test and the causal beliefs questionnaire. In the strategyplus-condition students improved significantly on items measuring criterialist beliefs. No effect was found for the control group. Unfortunately, we have no post-test measurement on epistemological beliefs in the strategy-condition. The causal writing task is also analysed.
Tentatively, we conclude that explicit instruction on causal strategies and meta-concepts is an important principle for fostering students’ ability to construct causal historical explanations. However, the role of epistemological reflection is less clear as no differences between both experimental groups were found. This might be attributed to the nature or quality of epistemological learning activities (classroom reflection only), to the small amount of time spent on this activity (to prevent differences between experimental groups), or to the measurements used.

Authors

• Gerhard Stoel, University of Amsterdam

• Jannet Van Drie, University of Amsterdam

• Carla Van Boxtel, University of Amsterdam