Conceptions underlying the construction of knowledge: A model from history teaching

Concepciones subyacentes a la construcción del conocimiento: un modelo desde la didáctica de la historia

Authors

Ana Isabel Ponce Gea, Universidad de Alicante
Noelia Sánchez-Pérez, Universidad de Zaragoza

DOI

10.22550/REP80-2-2022-04

Abstract

The aim of this article is, given the scarcity of studies in the field of education, to es­tablish a model of the concepts underlying the methodological dimension of the con­struction of historical knowledge. To do so, we start by defining the operations of the historical method, which make up the empirical variables. We then consider the contributions from didactics to define the constructs. The initial model comprises two dimensions: structuring operations, which are defined as the operations essential for proceeding in accordance with the historical method, which entails methodical thought; and alternative operations, which provide divergence and multiplicity, in accordance with an avant-garde history. To verify the model, we designed an objective instrument with 44 items and carried out a study with 222 subjects, aged between 13 and 18. The data were analysed using a variety of pro­cedures (Pearson correlations, CFA, descrip­tive statistics, etc.), using SPSS and MPlus statistical software. Among other interest­ing results, verifying the proposed model involves verifying a structure established in accordance with the nature of the opera­tions, confirming the proposed dimensions. This configuration of the model has impli­cations for the field of research as well as direct consequences for classroom practice.

Please, cite this article as follows: Ponce Gea, A. I., & Sánchez-Pérez, N. (2022). Concepciones subyacentes a la construcción del conocimiento: un modelo desde la didáctica de la historia | Conceptions underlying the construction of knowledge: A model from history teaching. Revista Española de Pedagogía, 80 (282), 269-287. 10.22550/REP80-2-2022-04

Referencias | References

Abad, F. J., Olea, J., Ponsoda, V., & García, C. (2011). Medición en ciencias sociales y de la salud [Health and social science measurement]. Síntesis.

Alía, F. (2016). Métodos de investigación histórica [Historical research methods]. Síntesis.

Aróstegui, J. (1995). La investigación histórica: teoría y método [Historical research: theory and method]. Crítica.

Bartelds, H., Savenije, G. M., & Van Boxtel, C. (2020). Students’ and teachers’ beliefs about historical empathy in secondary history edu­cation. Theory & Research in Social Educa­tion, 48 (4), 529-551. 10.1080/0 0933104.2020.1808131

Chapman, A. (2021). Construindo a compreensão e o pensamento histórico através do ensino explícito de raciocínio histórico [Building historical under-standing and thinking through explicit teaching of historical reasoning]. In L. A. Alves & M. Gago (Coords.), Diálogo(s), epistemologia(s) e educação histórica: um primeiro olhar (pp. 21-36). CITCEM.

Cooper, H. (2013). Teaching history creatively. Routledge.

Domínguez-Rey, A. (2013). Texto, Mundo, Contexto: Intersticios (génesis discursiva) [Text, World, Context: Interstices (discursive genesis)]. Uni­versidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia.

Duquette, C. (2015). Relating historical conscious­ness to historical thinking through assessment. In K. Ercikan & P. Seixas, New Directions in Assessing Historical Thinking (pp. 51-63). Routledge.

Elmersjö, H. A. (2021). Genre Positions and Epis­temic Cognition: Swedish Upper Secondary School History Teachers and the Nature of History. Scandinavian Journal of Educational 10.1080/00313831.2021.1939139

Fuentes, C. (2004). Concepciones de los alumnos sobre la historia [Students’ conceptions of history]. Enseñanza de las Ciencias Sociales, 3, 75-83. https://raco.cat/index.php/Ensenan­zaCS/article/view/126194

Greene, J. A., Sandoval, W. A, & Bräten, I. (2016). Handbook of epistemic cognition. Routledge.

Guerrero, C., & Miralles, P. (2017). Dimensiones e indicadores para el análisis de la influencia del pensamiento creativo en la formación del pen­samiento histórico [Dimensions and indicators for analysing the influence of creative thinking on the formation of historical thinking]. Clío: History and History Teaching, 43, 11-23. http:// clio.rediris.es/n43/articulos/monografico2017/ nonografico2017_1.pdf

Hofer, B. K. (2004). Epistemological understanding as a metacognitive process: Thinking aloud during online searching. Educational Psychol ogist, 39 (1), 43- 55.

Johnston, M., Hipkins, R., & Scheedan, M. (2017). Building epistemic thinking through discipli­nary inquiry: Contrasting lessons from history and biology. Curriculum Matters, 13, 80-102. 10.18296/cm.0020

King, P. M., & Kitchener, K. S. (2002). The re­flective judgment model: Twenty years of re­search on epistemic cognition. In B. K. Hofer & P. R. Pintrich (Eds.), Personal epistemolo­gy: The psychology of beliefs about knowledge and knowing (pp. 37-61). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Kropman, M., Van Drie, J., & Van Boxtel, C. (2019). Multiperspectivity in the history class­room: the role of narrative and metaphor. In M. Hanne & A. A. Kaal (Eds.), Narra­tive and metaphor in education: look both ways (pp. 63-75). Routledge. https://doi.or­g/10.1080/1554480X.2019.1610615

Lee, P., & Shemilt, D. (2003). A scaffold, not a cage: Progression and Progression models in history. Teaching History, 113, 13-23. https://www. history.org.uk/secondary/resource/83/a-sca­ffold-not-a-cage-progression-and-progressio

López de la Vieja, T. (2009). Constructivismo [Con-structivism]. In R. Reyes (Dir.), Diccionario crítico de ciencias sociales. https://webs.ucm. es/info/eurotheo/diccionario/C/constructivis­mo.htm

Maggioni, L., VanSledright, B., & Alexander, P. A. (2010). Walking on the borders: A measure of epistemic cognition in history. The Journal of Experimental Education, 77 (3), 187-214. ht­tps://doi.org/10.3200/JEXE.77.3.187-214

Martínez-Hita, M., & Gómez-Carrasco, C. J. (2018). Cognitive level and historical thinking competencies in history textbooks from Spain and England. A comparative study. Revista de Educación, 379 (enero-marzo), 145-169. 10.4438/1988-592X-RE-2017-379-364

Mathis, C., & Parkes, R. (2020). Historical think-ing, epistemic cognition and history teacher education. In C. Berg & T. Christou (Eds.), Pal­grave handbook of history and social studies education (pp. 189-212). Palgrave MacMillan.

Miguel-Revilla, D., Carril-Merino, T., & Sánchez-Agustí, M. (2021). An examination of epistemic beliefs about history in initial teacher training: A com­parative analysis between primary and secondary education prospective teachers. The Journal of Experimental Education, 89 (1), 54-73. https://doi. org/10.1080/00220973.2020.1718059

Miguel-Revilla, D., & Fernández-Portela, J. (2017). Creencias epistemológicas sobre la Geografía y la Historia en la formación inicial del profeso­rado de Educación Infantil y Primaria [Epis­temic beliefs about Geography and History in Early Childhood and Primary Education initial teacher training]. Didáctica de las ciencias ex­perimentales y sociales, 33, 3-20. https://doi. org/10.7203/dces.33.10875

Mislevy, R. J. (1994). Evidence and inference in educational assessment. Psychometrica, 59, 439-483. 10.1007/BF02294388

Pagès, J., & Santisteban, A. (2010). La enseñanza y el aprendizaje del tiempo histórico en Educa­ción Primaria. Cadernos Cedes, Campinas, 30 (82), 281-309. https://www.cedes.unicamp.br/ publicacoes/edicao/246

Perry, W. G. (1970). Forms of intellectual and ethi­cal development in the college years: A scheme. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

Ponce, A. I. (2019). Teorías epistemológicas y cono­cimiento histórico del alumnado: diseño y vali­dación de una prueba [Epistemological theories and students’ historical knowledge: test design and validation] [Doctoral thesis]. Universidad de Murcia, Universidade do Porto.

Prats, J., & Fernández, R. (2017). ¿Es posible una explicación objetiva sobre la realidad social? Reflexiones básicas e imprescindibles para in­vestigadores noveles [Is it possible to explain social reality objectively? Basic and essential reflections for novice researchers]. DIDAC­TICAE, 1, 97-110. 10.1344/ did.2017.1.97-110

Ramada, D. (2013). Para que serve a história? [What is history for?] Edições Tinta-da-China.

Ricoeur, P. (2004). La memoria, la historia, el olvi­do [Memory, history, forgetting]. Fondo de Cul­tura Económica.

Rüsen, J. (1994). ¿Qué es la cultura histórica? Re­flexiones sobre una nueva manera de abordar la historia [What is historical culture? Reflections on a new approach to history]. http://www.cul­turahistorica.org/

Sakki, I., & Pirttilä-Backman, A. M. (2019). Aims in teaching history and their epistemic corre-lates: a study of history teachers in ten coun­tries. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 27 (1), 65- 85. 10.1080/14681366.2019.156 6166

Schommer, M. (1990). Effects of beliefs about the nature of knowledge on comprehension. Jour­nal of Educational Psychology, 82 (3), 498–504. 10.1037/0022-0663.82.3.498

Seixas, P. (2017). A model of historical thinking. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 49 (6), 593-605. 10.1080/00131857.201 5.1101363

Seixas, P., Gibson, L., & Ercikan, K. (2015). A de­sign process for assessing historical thinking: The case of a one-hour test. In K. Ercikan & P. Seixas, New Directions in Assessing Historical Thinking (pp. 102-116). Routledge.

Seixas, P. y Morton, T. (2013). The big six historical thinking concepts. Nelson Education.

Smith, M. (2018). New multiple-choice measures of historical thinking: An investigacion of cogniti­ve validity. Theory & Research in Social Edu­cation, 46 (1), 1-34. 10.1080/009 33104.2017.1351412

Smith, M., Breakstone, J., & Wineburg, S. (2019). History assessments of thinking: A validity study. Cognition and Instruction, 37, 118-144. 10.1080/07370008.2018.1499646

Soler-Contreras, M. G., Cárdenas-Salgado, F. A., Hernández-Pina, F., & Monroy-Hernández, F. (2017). Enfoques de aprendizaje y enfoques de enseñanza: origen y evolución [Approaches to learning and teaching: Origin and evolution]. Educación y Educadores, 20 (1), 65-88. 10.5294/edu.2017.20.1.4

Suárez, M. A. (2012). Concepciones sobre la Histo­ria en Primaria: La epistemología como asunto clave en la formación inicial de maestros [Con­ceptions of history in primary school: Episte­mology as a key issue in initial teacher educa­tion]. Didáctica de las ciencias experimentales y sociales, 26, 73-92. 10.7203/ dces.26.1932

Thorp, R., & Persson, A. (2020). On historical thin­king and the history educational challenge. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 52 (8), 891-901. 10.1080/00131857.202 0.1712550

Torres-Ayala, D. (2020). Historia pública. Una apuesta para pensar y repensar el quehacer histórico [Public History. A Perspective for Thinking and Rethinking Historical]. Work Historia y Sociedad, 38, 229-249. https://doi. org/10.15446/hys.n38.80019

Van Drie, J., & Van Boxtel, C. (2007). Historical rea­soning: Towards a framework for analyzing stu­dents’ reasoning about the past. Educational Psychology Review, 20 (2), 87-110. https://doi. org/10.1007/s10648-007-9056-1

VanSledright, B. (2015). Assessing for learning in the history classroom. In K. Ercikan & P. Seixas (Eds.), New Directions in Assessing Historical Thinking (pp. 75- 88). Routledge.

VanSledright, B., Maggioni, L., & Reddy, K. (2011). Preparing teachers to teach historical think-ing? The interplay between professional de­velopment programs and school-systems’ cul­tures. Annual meeting of the American Edu­cational Research Association, New Orleans. 10.4018/978-1-5225-0204-3.ch012

Wiley, J., Griffin, T. D., Steffens, B., & Britt, M. A. (2020). Epistemic beliefs about the value of integrating information across multiple doc-uments in history. Learning and Instruction, 65 (101266). 10.1016/j.learnins­truc.2019.101266

Author Biography

Ana Isabel Ponce Gea. Graduate in Primary Education from the Universidad de Murcia. Doctorate in Education from the Universidad de Murcia and Doctorate in History from the Universidade do Porto. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of General Didactics and Specific Didactics at the Universidad de Alicante. She is part of the “Spain in the 20th Century: 2nd Republic, Francoism and Democracy” research group and of the “University Institute for Latin American Social Studies” at the same institution. She also collaborates in the Transdisci­plinary Culture, Space, and Memory Re­search Centre in the Faculty of Languages and Literature of the Universidade do Porto. Her main lines of research centre on the development of historical thinking, the construction of identities, the use of heritage as a source, and designing and validating tests.

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0432-2595

Noelia Sánchez-Pérez. Doctorate in Psychology from the Universidad de. She is currently contracted as an Assis­ tant Professor in the Evolutionary and Educational Psychology Area of the Fac­ulty of Social and Human Sciences at the Universidad de Zaragoza and is coordi­nator of the Degree in Early Childhood Teaching in this faculty. Collaborating researcher at the Basque Center on Cog­nition, Brain and Language and in the Cognitive Neuroscience Group of the Universidad de Murcia. Her research in­terests centre on study of self-regulation processes from a multidisciplinary per­spective to establish the relationships between self-regulation during child­hood and academic performance, or the development of cognitive training pro­grammes for students to improve their cognitive and academic skills.

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6112-9639

Citación recomendada | Recommended citation

Ponce Gea, A. I. & Sánchez-Pérez, N. (2022). Concepciones subyacentes a la construcción del conocimiento: un modelo desde la didáctica de la historia | Conceptions underlying the construction of knowledge: A model from history teaching. Revista Española de Pedagogía, 80 (282), 269-287. 10.22550/REP80-2-2022-04

Licencia Creative Commons | Creative Commons License

Esta obra está bajo una licencia internacional Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial 4.0.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License