Reading multiple historical texts

Nokes, J. D., Dole, J. A., & Hacker, D. J. (2007). Teaching high school students to use heuristics while reading historical texts. Journal of Educational Psychology, 99(3), 492-504. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.99.3.492

Background

Research has shown that students do not approach history in the way historians do. Students read texts linearly and accept everything they read as facts to be remembered. They then get frustrated when they meet texts presenting different facts. Historians, on the other hand, use a set of heuristics: sourcing (checking the source), corroboration (checking the consistency of a text internally and externally) and contextualization (inferring the social and political context) seeing differences as opportunities to further refine their view of history.

Aims

The aims of the study were to see if (i) getting students to use a set of source texts instead of a single textbook and/ or (ii) teaching students to use heuristics while reading would help students learn history better.

Sample

The authors worked with 246 11th grade students from eight classes in two schools in a suburb in the western United States taught by eight teachers recommended by the schools.

Method

The teachers were observed for three weeks to check that they did not usually use multiple texts or teach the target heuristics. The classes were randomly assigned to four different treatments, two each to (a) a textbook and a focus on content, (b) a textbook and a focus on heuristics, (c) multiple sources and a focus on content, and (d) multiple sources and a focus on heuristics. The eight teachers were given teaching packs to follow closely. All classes used the same materials and methods apart from ten intervention-specific one-hour reading lessons over the 15-day history unit. The students took a test of content as well as an essay requiring use of the heuristics pre- and post-course.

Findings

The authors found that the use of multiple sources with a focus on content had the greatest improvement effect on knowledge of content and even the use of multiple sources with a focus on heuristics produced better results than either of the two remaining approaches based on a single textbook.

Implications

Using multiple texts helps students learn content better than a single textbook. Further research is needed on the teaching of heuristics as students in this study tended to have problems with the contextualization heuristic they were taught.

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