Stimulating Historical Thinking in a Collaborative Learningtask: An Analysis of Student Talk and Written Answers. Issue 2 (1st July 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Havekes, Harry; van Boxtel, Carla; Coppen, Peter-Arno; Luttenberg, Johan
• Is Part Of: History education research journal. Volume 13:Issue 2(2014)
• Page Start: 106
• Page End: 126
• Publication Date: 2016-07-01
• Subjects: COLLABORATIVE TALK/DIALOGUE -- CONCEPTS – DOMAIN SPECIFIC -- PROPOSITIONAL/SUBSTANTIVE -- HISTORICAL CONTEXTUALIZATION -- HISTORICAL THINKING – QUALITATIVE -- RESEARCH – GROUNDED THEORY; History -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; History -- Research -- Periodicals; 907
• DOI: 10.18546/HERJ.13.2.12
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2631-9713

Abstract

Abstract : This study investigates how a collaborative learning task in history, designed to trigger domain-specific thinking, can stimulate high quality student talk and answers and how the task, student talk and student answers are related. We developed a collaborative task that was tested in two cycles. Students worked in pairs on an odd-one-out task with additional questions in which they had to construct a historical context. Our analysis of the student talk of 65 dyads, focusing on the collaborative nature of the talk and the discussion of multiple perspectives, gave insight in how the students constructed a historical context. Our analysis of the written answers, focusing on the use of domain-related concepts and the construction of relationships, made it possible to describe what kind of historical context the students constructed. Chi-square tests gave insight into the relationships between the task, the talk and the written answers.The results show that specific stimuli in the task can lead to different kind of student talk and can help to construct high quality answers. Results also indicate that students have problems with the specialized language of the domain and that the epistemological stance of the students remains problematic, mainly because students do not seem to be aware of the multiple perspectives needed to construct a historical context.