Page 64 - Balancing between the present and the past

Chapter 3
3.4.5 Qualitative research sample and data analysis
For our qualitative research sample, we used non-probability sampling to select 10 history teachers from 10 schools, five urban and five rural. The participating schools generally matched the total population in terms of student enrollment and graduation rates (Statistics Netherlands, 2014). We asked the 10 selected teachers to randomly select four 10th-grade students from the two highest Dutch educational tracks.4 Four students did not agree to participate in the study, resulting in a sample of 36 students. In this sample, the mean student age was 15.6 years, and the gender distribution was 19 female students (53%) and 17 male students (47%). The students’ answers were videotaped and transcribed for further data analysis (Ericsson & Simon, 1993). The interviewer was instructed to encourage students to think aloud and to read the instrument’s items aloud to trigger students’ reasoning processes. The mean time that students spent on the instrument was 13.8 minutes. The protocols were coded by one of the authors using the software program ATLAS.ti (Muhr, 1991), and two expert secondary school history teachers, both of whom held a Master’s degree in history, reviewed the coding. Coding categories were based on our theoretical framework, and we formulated four primary categories with subcategories, as displayed in Table 7.
3.5 Results
3.5.1 Students’ scores on the HPT instrument
In Table 8, we present the students’ mean prior knowledge score, mean category scores (POP, ROA, and CONT), and mean HPT score. We consider mean HPT scores < 2.50 as denoting inadequate ability, scores ≥ 2.50 < 3.00 as denoting adequate ability, scores ≥ 3.00 < 3.50 as denoting good ability, and scores ≥ 3.50 as denoting excellent ability. The students’ individual mean HPT scores ranged from 1.56 to 3.89 on a 4-point scale, with a mean score of 3.21. The mean prior knowledge score was 2.21 on a 4-point scale (see Appendix C for the four prior knowledge questions). The best overall student performance was observed on question one, which asked about the First World War, with 91% of the students answering correctly. The second question, which asked about the rise of Hitler, was answered correctly by 55% of the students, whereas the third question, which asked about the Wall Street Crisis, was answered correctly by only 26% of the students. The last question, which asked about the Treaty of Versailles, was answered correctly by 48% of the students.
4 The published article (Huijgen, Van Boxtel, Van de Grift, & Holthuis, 2017) stated that the sample comprised of pre-university students but also senior general secondary education students were included.
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