Historical thinking development of students: Applying the historical perspective-taking model Author: Shu-Ching Yang(Graduate Institute of Education,National Sun Yat-sen University),Li-Jung Huang(Kaohsiung Municipal Ming Hua Junior High School Kaohsiung City)

Vol.&No.：Vol. 56, No. 4
Date：December 2011
Pages：129-153
DOI：10.3966/2073753X2011125604005

Abstract：

History education should emphasize student competencies of historical thinking instead of learning historical facts. Of all the competencies, historical empathy and historical perspective- taking are well adopted points for teaching historical thinking to high school students. This study uses the historical perspective-taking (HPT) model (Hartmann & Hasselhorn, 2008) to develop an HPT measure, to investigate the historical perspective-taking of high school students. In total, 1,017 participants were recruited from the 8th, 9th and 11th grade students within the Kaohsiung County. The factor analysis results show that the two factors of present perspective and student ability for historical contextualization (CONT) with good reliability. The facor of the present perspective includes present-oriented perspective taking (POP) and the role of the historical agent (ROA).The findings revealed no gender differences on the entire HPT measure, but girls scored higher on ROA than boys. For CONT, second-grade senior high school students outperformed the second-grade junior high school students, and the third-grade junior high school outperformed the second grade. Based on the findings, this study proposes suggestions for history teachers and future studies.

Keywords：historical thinking abilities, historical empathy, history education, historical perspective taking

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