Reimagining World History: Analyzing College Learners' Conceptual Understanding of World History

• In Event: 52.084 - Roundtable Session 20
  In Roundtable Session: 52.084-4 - Reimagining Social Science Learning

Abstract

This study focuses on what college students consider to be the most important events and ideas in world history as well as how students from different courses synthesize these ideas and events into logical themes that transcend time and region. Approximately 350 students from five western civilization courses and approximately 650 students from ten world history courses participated. We included students from different courses to examine whether conceptualizations differ across western civilization courses and world history courses. If the results show that conceptual understandings are similar across the two courses, this may indicate that world history courses have limited influence on expanding students’ understanding of global themes and processes in the past.

Authors

• Carol A. Wong, University of Delaware

• Hannah Kim, University of Delaware

• Barry Alan Joyce, University of Delaware