Page 138 - Balancing between the present and the past

Chapter 6
used the pedagogy and a control condition where the teachers used a more traditional lesson structure. The participating teachers in the experimental condition were asked to keep a diary (e.g., Bailey, 1990) during the intervention to describe examples of how students might improve in historical contextualization using the pedagogical framework. Post-intervention interviews with the teachers in the experimental condition were used to discuss the examples in the teachers’ diaries. This additional qualitative method provided more insights on how the pedagogy was implemented and how students might have improved in historical contextualization.
6.4.2 Participants
Since we wanted as few differences as possible between the teachers, we used non-probability sampling to select teachers of a similar age, work experience as a history teacher, nationality, and educational degree from our professional network to participate in the intervention. All selected teachers had participated in a 1-day professionalization program at the institution of the first author but were not specifically trained in historical contextualization. All teachers participated voluntarily, held Dutch nationality, and had a masters-level educational degree. Their schools did not differ significantly from the total population regarding graduation and enrollment numbers (Statistics Netherlands, 2016). The participating teachers attended two training meetings (two hours per meeting) to understand the lesson structure and activities and how to administer the pre- and post-tests. Table 20 presents the teachers’ characteristics. The average student class size was 20.2 students in the experimental condition and 14.0 students in the control condition. History is an elective in Dutch upper secondary education, and the classes can therefore differ in size.
Table 20. Teachers’ characteristics
Experimental groups
Ben 1 David 2 Wendy 3 Kim 4 Lisa 5 Control groups
Ben 6 Emily 7
Note. *Names are pseudonyms.
Male Male Female Female Female
Male Female
43 16 41 14 50 15 40 13 32 7
43 16 48 4
Teacher*
Class
Gender
Age
Years
of work experience
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