Waldis Weber, Monika
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Promoting oral argumentation in citizenship education
Deliberative democracy theories advocate for the communicative activation of citizens in opinion formation. Therefore, civic education should introduce adolescents to deliberative processes and to promote their argumentative competence, which is understood as both a linguistic and a political competence. In accordance with our roots in deliberative democratic theory, we view argumentation as a dialogue-based process. This makes transactivity a key feature of good civic reasoning. Empirical evidence shows potential for instructional interventions to boost oral reasoning and critical thinking across subjects, but their effects often remain inconsistent. Data also suggests that students in deliberative settings are more willing to engage with opposing arguments and revise their own. Dialogues in small groups facilitate the acquisition of argumentation skills. Despite these findings, there's limited research on argumentation training effectiveness. In an intervention study (grades 8 and 9), Gronostay combined a thematic input with argumentation training, leading to more transactive speech acts during the subsequent fishbowl discussion in the experimental group. However, the revision and adaptation of their own arguments remained largely absent. This study investigates the effectiveness of an adapted version of Gronostay's strategy training in promoting transactive dialogues. The research involved six seasoned teachers and their classes in the 2022/23 school year, who were engaging with the subject of a cashless society. Despite standardized argumentation training, the quality of debates varied significantly between the classes studied. Influences on the quality of the debates include the social structure of the class, the influence of didactic scaffolding, such as argumentation training.
ZwischenWelten. Grenzgänge zwischen Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften, Geschichtsdidaktik und Politischer Bildung
Investigating adolescents’ historical reasoning skills when analyzing and interpreting an image
This study investigated adolescents’ (secondary school students, N = 145, M age 13.9 years) historical reasoning skills when analyzing and interpreting an image. Presumably, historical reasoning can be fostered when engaging in inquiry-based writing. However, in past research using inquiry-based writing tasks, textual sources rather than images prevailed. The present research investigated students’ writing skills when interpreting a historical image. Participants were presented with a historical photograph and were asked to write a structured text about their analysis and interpretation of this image. A scoring rubric was developed to assess the quality of students’ historical reasoning skills, specifically: (1) asking and answering historical questions, (2) reasoning about images, and (3) reasoning with images. Findings show that the factor structure of the scoring rubric largely overlaps with theoretically distinguished components of historical reasoning. Students were able to ask historical questions and write a well-structured text. However, most students did not describe and analyze the source of the image and did not refer to the main message of the image. Further, many students could not identify the image’s relevance for the present. Importantly, the findings imply that students’ methodological competencies to critically analyze and interpret the used image were not elaborated. Possibly, they do not receive sufficient training addressing these skills. This seems problematic, not only in history education but also when deriving meaning from images in everyday life.
Historisches Lernen und Geschichtskultur oder gesellschaftliches historisches Lernen als künftiges Forschungsfeld der Geschichtsdidaktik
Narrative Kompetenz und epistemologische Beliefs im Geschichtsunterricht fördern? Zur Wirksamkeit einer Schreibintervention an Deutschweizer Gymnasien
Narrative competence and epistemological beliefs of German Swiss prospective history teachers: A situated relationship
Few history education studies have indicated that school students’ epistemological beliefs affect their historical thinking and writing. Some research has suggested that history teaching could affect these aspects. Several history educators have assumed that (prospective) history teachers’ epistemological beliefs are related to their ways of teaching and to their ability to think historically. Yet evidence underpinning these assumptions is rare. To address this gap, we investigated how prospective German Swiss history teachers’ epistemological beliefs impacts their reading and writing abilities in terms of narrative competence. We therefore applied argumentative writing tasks to assess participants’ narrative competence and surveyed their epistemological beliefs and further contextual covariates (e.g., situational interest, number of history courses attended at university). Results show small effects of participants’ epistemological beliefs on their narrative competence, while their situational interest is more influential. Other contextual constructs (e.g., number of history courses attended at university) are also predictive. Overall, our results indicate that narrative competence and epistemological beliefs are correlated yet situated in contextual aspects.