Page 59 - Balancing between the present and the past

puzzlement, asking questions, or specifying gaps in knowledge. Though research
has been conducted on how certain tasks, such as class discussions (Kohlmeier,
2006), source work (Brooks, 2011), and writing assignments (Brooks, 2008), can
support components of HPT, important questions regarding the process of HPT and
the difficulties students experience when performing HPT remain. For example, do
students who rush to conclusions or who do not display their specification of ignorance
perform more poorly on HPT than students who express doubt, ask questions, and
understand the consequences of what they do not know? 3
3.3 Research questions
Teachers, educators, and researchers are still missing relevant information about why some students successfully perform HPT while others fail. In this study, we answer the call of previous research that argues for the use of think-aloud methods to identify students’ reasoning when performing HPT and to further validate instruments that assess students’ ability to perform HPT. We therefore specify the following two research questions:
1. 2.
3.4
3.4.1
What are the HPT abilities of 15- and 16-year-old pre-university students?
How do 15- and 16-year-old students reason when completing an HPT instrument?
Method
Research design
To answer our research questions, we used a mixed-method research design incorporating an HPT instrument as a student task. First, we conducted quantitative research to examine 15- to 16-year-old pre-university students’ general level of ability to perform HPT. Next, we conducted qualitative research using the think-aloud methodology to explore students’ underlying reasoning processes when performing HPT. In other words, we investigated how these students solve the assignment of the HPT instrument. The think aloud methodology, which has been widely used to capture students’ reasoning processes (Van Someren, Barnard, & Sandberg, 1994),
Contextualizing historical agents’ actions
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