Page 44 - Balancing between the present and the past

Chapter 2
Because we assume that both instruments test the same abilities of students, we calculated correlations between the category scores of the two tests across all students. The correlation coefficient between the present-oriented perspective category scores was .24, which was significant at the .01 level. We did not find a significant correlation between the two instruments category scores for the role of the historical agent. Between the historical contextualization category scores, there was a significant correlation of .23 at the .01 level. The correlation coefficient between the total HPT scores of all students was .23, which was significant at the .01 level.
2.5.4 Differences among the students when executing HPT
The third research question focuses on possible differences between students regarding their ability to perform HPT. The data obtained from the slavery instrument offered too low of an internal consistency to support the reliability of the data; therefore, we decided to work only with the Nazi Party instrument’s data. Using these data, we investigated student mean scores for the three different categories (viz., the present- oriented perspective, role of the historical agent, and historical contextualization), plotted by age and educational level. Figure 2 presents the three mean category scores for students between the ages of 10 and 17 years. Both the declining trend for the present-oriented perspective category and the ascending trend for the historical contextualization category are notable. Starting at approximately eleven years of age, students began scoring higher in the historical contextualization category than in the present-oriented perspective category. With regard to the role of the historical agent, a decline occurred between the ages of 10 and 12 years, then after the age of 12, the line began to ascend, similar to the historical contextualization scores.
We calculated correlations for further analysis. Between 13 and 17 years (secondary education), the students showed a small but significant correlation of .11 (at the .01 level) between their scores in the category measuring the role of the historical agent and in the historical contextualization category. We did not find such a significant correlation (at the .01 or .05 level) when students were between 10 and 12 years of age (elementary education). Both senior general secondary and pre-university education showed the same trend (as plotted in Figure 2) between the ages of 12 and 17.
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