Student Understanding of Disagreements in Societal Controversies about History

• In Event: Assessing How Historical Content is Learned: Research on Student Thinking and Understanding

Abstract

This paper presents an iteratively designed task-based instrument (SUDSCH) to measure students’ understanding of factual and moral disagreements in societal controversies about history. Participating 9th-grade students (N=438) analyzed four discussion-based tasks about controversial topics. They had to identify which arguments were based on values or facts, what values were being debated, what the speakers agreed and disagreed on, and what the core of their disagreement was.

Results demonstrate varied but low performances. Although nearly half of the students could identify which statements were based on values, they struggled to specify which values were involved and the core of the disagreement. Though exploratory, SUDSCH offers a novel empirical approach to controversy in history education, highlighting student pitfalls for future interventions.

Authors

• Stephan Venmans, University of Amsterdam

• Carla Van Boxtel, University of Amsterdam

• Jaap Schuitema, University of Amsterdam

• Geerte Maria Savenije, University of Amsterdam

• Tessa van Schijndel, University of Amsterdam

• Saskia Arbon, University of Amsterdam