Page 46 - Balancing between the present and the past

Chapter 2
Regarding the first research question, we found, in line with Hartmann and Hasselhorn (2008), positive indicators for the reliability and validity for the Nazi Party instrument. We also concluded that HPT is a two-dimensional construct consisting of (1) a dimension characterized by present-oriented perspective and historical contextualization poles and (2) items pertaining to the role of the historical agent. A PCA performed on our data from the Nazi Party instrument confirmed this. The reliability analyses indicated very acceptable (nearly characterizable as good) internal consistency for the Nazi Party instrument when we excluded the items tapping the role of the historical agent. We do not know the implications of the role of the historical agent items and its relation with the historical reasoning competency of HPT. Thinking-aloud methods could provide more insight if the role of historical agent items can contribute to students’ ability to perform HPT.
To examine the second research question, we used a different historical scenario about 19th-century slavery with the same item-rating format. When examining the psychometric qualities of this slavery instrument, we did find positive evidence for content validity but not for predictive validity or internal consistency. In line with Hartmann and Hasselhorn’s (2008) conclusions, our findings using the data obtained from the Nazi Party instrument showed HPT emerging as a two-dimensional construct. However, with the slavery instrument, our PCA identified three dimensions that were separately associated with each perspective (viz., present-oriented perspective, role of the historical agent, and historical contextualization).
Regarding the third research question, using the data obtained from the Nazi Party instrument, we found that upper elementary school students, starting at the age of 10 years, successfully performed some historical contextualization efforts. This is in line with research conducted by Barton (1997), Brophy and VanSledright (1997), and Field (2001). However, they also displayed more presentism, which resulted in higher scores on the present-oriented perspective items. Older students achieved higher scores for historical contextualization than younger students, and pre-university students held the highest HPT scores compared with students in senior general secondary and elementary education groups.
There may be several reasons for the differences in reliability and validity observed between the slavery instrument and the Nazi Party instrument. Because we embedded testing students’ ability to perform HPT into determining the usefulness
44