The process of historical questioning. A systematic literature review

Abstract

The majority of history educators in the English- and German-speaking contexts concur that the objective of history education is to foster historical thinking. While there exist some models for the progression of second-order concepts that provide an analytical framework to support these learning processes, such models are almost entirely lacking for the procedural aspects of historical thinking. This is also true for historical questioning, which is generally regarded in the literature as the ‘engine’ of historical thinking. However, there remains a paucity of theories and empirical studies that systematically operationalise the process of historical questioning and its development. To address this research gap, our systematic literature review provides in-depth insight into relevant studies on (historical) questioning from different angles in order to conceptualise three main operations of historical questioning: (1) experiencing perplexity, (2) expliciting perplexity and (3) expressing the historical question. Furthermore, the review systematises sub-operations and quality characteristics of both the process of historical questioning and its operations. Finally, the results are discussed based on an analytical framework and with regard to practical implications.