Page 66 - Balancing between the present and the past

Chapter 3
Table 8. Students’ mean prior knowledge score, mean category scores, and mean HPT score
Mean score
Mean score
Mean score
Mean score
Mean score
prior knowledge (n = 139)
2.21 (SD = 1.01)
POP
(n = 143)
3.28 (SD = 0.63)
ROA
(n = 143)
3.08 (SD = 0.49)
CONT (n = 143)
3.26 (SD = 0.51)
HPT
(n = 143)
3.20 (SD = 0.37)
Note. POP = present-oriented perspective, ROA = role of the historical agent, and CONT = historical contextualization.
The mean POP score was calculated using the opposite scoring system of the ROA and CONT categories. The maximum score of 4.00 for the POP category shows a very low level of presentism.
3.5.2 Student reasoning on the HPT instrument
To explore how the 15- to 16-year-old students arrived at their answers, we asked 36 students to think aloud as they solved the HPT instrument. Table 10 displays the individual mean HPT scores combined with students’ reported use of the various components of HPT. The highest mean HPT score achieved in this sample was 3.89 on a 4-point scale (David, Eva, and John), and the lowest was 1.89 (Bas). The mean HPT score for this sample was 3.39, and only two students (6%) received mean HPT scores < 2.50 (Sophie and Bas), while 17 students (47%) achieved mean HPT scores ≥ 3.50.
Table 9. Students categorized by their mean HPT score (n = 143)
Mean HPT score
n
% of total students
≥ 3.50
≥ 3.00 < 3.50 ≥ 2.50 < 3.00 < 2.50
Total
32 22.4% 82 57.3% 22 15.4% 7 4.9%
143 100%
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