Research on flexible assessment suggests that providing students with choice in assignments can increase motivation and deepen investment in learning. Although instructors are often advised to adopt flexible assessment, they are also warned about potential detriments such as perceived lack of rigour among colleagues, the stress that…

Historians often present their interpretation of the past in written accounts. In order to gain deeper knowledge of the discipline of history, students must learn how to read and write historical accounts. In this experimental pretest--posttest study, we investigated the impact of a domain-specific reading instruction followed by domain-specific…

Source-based writing is a common but difficult task in history and philosophy. Students are usually taught how to write a good text in language classes. However, it is also important to address discipline-specificity in writing, a topic likely to be taught by content teachers. In order to design discipline-specific writing instruction, research…

In history education, the deconstruction of narratives is an important skill for students. The skill teaches them to look critically at the offered texts. In this study, we investigated the extent to which students are able to critically analyse the narratives in their history textbooks. To answer this question, we asked 106 students in…

This article presents findings from an empirical study in which we investigated Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) students' linguistic resources in the L2 (English) to convey different Cognitive Discourse Functions (Dalton-Puffer 2013; 2016)--"Describe, Compare (Categorize), Report, Evaluate" and "Explore"--in two…

This article discusses the authors' experience implementing the use of the online platform Story Maps, which allows students to create digital geographic information systems (GIS) maps of past people, places, and events and combine them with text, images, and other multimedia, in three different undergraduate history courses. The authors found…

This article features an innovative and engaging assignment to help students learn about labor history events. Labor history is more than just a collection of dates, facts, and figures. Rather, it is the study of the men, women, and children who fought for a workplace that many of today's employees take for granted: paid leave, a 5-day workweek,…

The topic of this article is how primary school students express ideas about the "origins of the nation." The study is based on texts written by Swedish students aged 12-13 about a historical event well embedded in Swedish national mythology, the rise to power of Swedish "founding father" Gustav Vasa. The analysis is inspired…

The paper shows that Tuning Project has generated indifference more than resistance within the French academic community. It proposes an analysis of the reasons of this situation: difficulties arising from Tuning itself, the resistance of the French academic tradition, the institutional inhibitors and facilitators. The impact of Tuning on French…

Since the early nineteenth century, western governments have expected history education to play a vital role in the formation of a national identity and the pursuit of national cohesion, by fostering shared knowledge and a shared (master)narrative of the national past. This article reports on a qualitative study that examines which narratives…

Tasks which invite students to identify with historical actors and describe their perspectives are a common phenomenon in history education. The aim of this study is to explore the differences in students' answers when completing a writing task in first person ("imagine you are in the past") or in third person ("imagine someone in…

The recent rise of anti-Semitic acts and general lack of Holocaust knowledge highlights the need to integrate Holocaust education across disciplines. An undergraduate criminology class at Queensborough Community College (QCC-CUNY) was aligned with an on-campus Holocaust center exhibit, 'Conspiracy of Goodness', focused on rescuing behaviors of the…

In 2012, Uganda celebrated 50 years as an independent state following more than half a century under colonial rule. Since independence, Uganda has experienced a period of political turmoil and civil war within its constructed colonial borders. Given these historical experiences, what do students find important about their nation's history and what…

The reliability of an assessment is defined as the extent to which candidates' results would remain stable if the entire assessment exercise was repeated. Whilst numerous studies have evaluated the reliability of written examinations, relatively little has been done to quantify the reliability of internal teacher assessment within schools. This is…

The increased interest in basing teaching on disciplinary thinking has had a profound impact on the syllabus for history in Sweden. Within this context, we examine how students demonstrate one aspect of disciplinary thinking in history, namely reasoning about historical sources. The material used is written answers to an assignment about…