2024-01-10, van Loon, Kevin, Studer, Dominic, Waldis Weber, Monika

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.

2020, Waldis Weber, Monika, Nitsche, Martin, Gollin, Kristine

2019, Marti, Philipp, Gollin, Kristine, Waldis Weber, Monika

2016-03, Nitsche, Martin, Waldis Weber, Monika

2022, Nitsche, Martin, Waldis Weber, Monika

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.

2020, Thyroff, Julia, Scheller, Jan, Schneider, Claudia, Waldis Weber, Monika

Mit Einführung des Lehrplans 21 stehen Geschichtslehrpersonen künftig vor der Herausforderung, auf Sekundarstufe I auch Politische Bildung zu unterrichten – ein Fach, das jedoch über ganz eigene Prinzipien, Perspektiven, Konzepte und Kompetenzen verfügt. Inwiefern gelingt es Lehrpersonen aktuell, diese genuin politische Fachlichkeit zu realisieren? Im Text stellen wir Ergebnisse unserer Unterrichtsanalysen vor, die wir anhand von acht Doppellektionen zum Gegenstand «Europa – EU – Schweiz», durchgeführt von vier Lehrpersonen, gewonnen haben. Wir fokussieren dabei auf zwei Aspekte: a) Inwiefern wird von den Lehrpersonen auf der Gegenstandsebene politische Fachlichkeit realisiert und b) inwieweit werden in den formulierten Arbeitsaufträgen politische Kompetenzen adressiert?

2019, Thyroff, Julia, Hedinger, Franziska, Waldis Weber, Monika

2021, Neuenschwander, Markus, Sturm, Afra, Waldis Weber, Monika

2019, Waldis Weber, Monika, Nitsche, Martin, Wyss, Corinne

This paper explores pre-service history teachers' ability to recognize and reflect on typical situations occurring in the history classroom and to link these to students' historical learning. Therefore, we draw on the concept of professional vision (Goodwin, 1994), which assumes that teachers need a professional knowledge base to monitor and to reason about teaching and student learning. Based on theoretical notions of teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), we investigated history teachers' professional vision by means of a video survey with integrated video clips, open-ended writing assignments and standardized item ratings. We collected data from 303 and 220 pre-service teachers at the beginning and at the end, respectively, of their subject-specific teacher training. The collected data open up the possibility of 'simultaneous triangulation' (Morse, 1991), which was used for test validation. First, we tested the reliability of the closed-ended test instrument using item response theory, in order to develop a feasible test model. Second, we investigated the validity of the test instrument by comparing test results with the findings of the open-ended writing task. In general, student teachers reached rather low-test scores. They experienced difficulties in assessing classroom events in terms of their potential to support historical competencies and to evaluate the consequences for students' learning. Findings from the open writing assignment show that student teachers commented largely on generic teaching strategies while hardly noticing student learning. In sum, the chosen methodological approaches seem to contribute to a more distinct picture of preservice teachers' abilities to reason about history teaching and learning.

2017-10, Nitsche, Martin, Gollin, Kristine, Waldis Weber, Monika