students' interpretations of historical empathy

259 Pages·2013·3.82 MB·English

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“It is Really Hard Being in Their Shoes”:
Developing Historical Empathy in Secondary School Students

Martyn Charles Davison

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of doctor of
education in the Faculty of Education, The University of Auckland, 2012.
ABSTRACT
Historical empathy is highly valued by many history education researchers as a means of
cultivating tolerance and critical thinking. The potential of historical empathy however, to be
widely taught in classrooms, may not be fully realised because there is little agreement
regarding its meaning and teaching. This thesis, through a qualitative comparative case study,
explores students’ development of historical empathy, how the concept might be taught and
whether its meaning can be clarified.
The thesis begins by describing my interest in historical empathy, before identifying the
concept’s affective and cognitive dimensions found within the literature. It then outlines how
as a teacher-researcher I devised an intervention which entailed teaching one class (Class
A/C) the affective dimension first, followed by the cognitive dimension, and teaching another
class (Class C/A) the reverse: that is the cognitive dimension first, followed by the affective.
Within this context I set out to explore three research questions.
The first investigated, through interviews and visual material, how students interpret
historical empathy. Findings showed that their interpretations emphasised the difficulty of
empathising historically and they identified elements such as open-mindedness and evidence.
Building on this, I developed a typology and pathway to help establish a common
understanding of historical empathy.
The second explored the development of historical empathy in two students, Lucy (Class
A/C) and Claire (Class C/A), using their workbooks, essays and assessment task responses.
Typologies, pathways and spider-web diagrams were used to plot their progression, while
their essays exemplified what the concept of sophisticated historical empathy looked like.
The third investigated the sequencing of the affective and cognitive dimensions of historical
empathy. Results drawn from multiple data sources showed that student enjoyment and
interest were strongest when the affective dimension was taught first, followed by the
cognitive.
The thesis has made a useful contribution to my practice and the wider history community. It
has done this by clearly interpreting the meaning of historical empathy, identifying students’
growth in developing the concept through the use of progression strategies and by exploring
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how the sequence in which historical empathy’s affective and cognitive dimensions are
taught can influence learning.

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DEDICATION

I would like to acknowledge those who have contributed to the writing of this thesis.
Associate Professor Mary Hill, Dr Claire Sinnema and Associate Professor Graeme Aitken,
for their wise guidance, patience and good humour. Lil and Max, my wife and son, have
found me time and space to write. Max has matched my reading with his own, as we’ve
mined the university library for very different books. And, to my first history teacher, Mr
O’Hara, who brought the past to life.

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Table of Contents

ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................................ ii
DEDICATION ....................................................................................................................................... iv
LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................................. x
LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................................................................. xii
CHAPTER 1 ........................................................................................................................................... 1
INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................. 1
Overview ........................................................................................................................................................ 1
Teacher-Researcher ................................................................................................................................... 1
Preliminary Reading of the Literature: Areas of Debate ................................................................ 3
Purpose, Research Questions and Design ........................................................................................... 6
My Justification for Undertaking this Study ....................................................................................... 7
The Structure of My Study and Summary of Principal Findings .................................................. 9
CHAPTER 2 ......................................................................................................................................... 12
LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................................................................................... 12
Overview ...................................................................................................................................................... 12
Now is an Exciting Time to be Teaching History in New Zealand .............................................. 13
Historical Empathy: Realising its Potential ...................................................................................... 18
Too Many Problems to Handle and What to Put First? ................................................................. 22
Climbing the Ladder of Historical Empathy? ................................................................................... 31
The New Zealand Curriculum, NCEA and Progression .................................................................. 31
History Education Research Models of Historical Empathy and Progression ............................... 33
The Affective Dimension of Historical Empathy .............................................................................. 38
The Cognitive Dimension of Historical Empathy ............................................................................. 39
Deciding What These Dimensions Might Look Like........................................................................ 40
Summary ...................................................................................................................................................... 41
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CHAPTER 3: ........................................................................................................................................ 42
METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................................... 42
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................ 42
Research Questions .................................................................................................................................. 42
Purposes....................................................................................................................................................... 44
Conceptual Framework ........................................................................................................................... 45
Historical Empathy ........................................................................................................................ 45
Sequencing the Affective and Cognitive Dimensions of Historical Empathy ................................. 48
Teacher-Researcher ...................................................................................................................... 51
Setting out my Ground as a Teacher-Researcher: Ethical Inquiry as insider and outsider ........... 52
Qualitative Comparative Case Study .................................................................................................. 58
Context .......................................................................................................................................... 59
Participant selection...................................................................................................................... 61
Instructional Intervention.............................................................................................................. 63
Methods ........................................................................................................................................................ 65
Interviews ...................................................................................................................................... 67
Visual Materials ............................................................................................................................ 71
Documents .................................................................................................................................... 73
Entry, mid, Exit and Post Tasks (Assessment Tasks) ..................................................................... 75
Student Feedback Survey .............................................................................................................. 78
Classroom Response System – Engagement Ratings .................................................................... 80
Trustworthiness ........................................................................................................................................ 83
Triangulation ................................................................................................................................. 83
Member Checking ......................................................................................................................... 84
Researcher Bias and Peer Collaboration ....................................................................................... 85
Transferability ............................................................................................................................... 86
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CHAPTER 4 ......................................................................................................................................... 88
FINDINGS: STUDENTS’ INTERPRETATIONS OF HISTORICAL EMPATHY ........................... 88
Overview ...................................................................................................................................................... 88
Findings: Students Talking About How They Interpret Historical Empathy .......................... 88
Feeling Care ................................................................................................................................... 90
Evidence ........................................................................................................................................ 90
Imagination ................................................................................................................................... 92
Multiple Perspectives .................................................................................................................... 94
Contextual Knowledge .................................................................................................................. 95
Open-Mindedness ......................................................................................................................... 96
It is Difficult to Do Well ................................................................................................................. 97
Findings: Students Visual Interpretations of Historical Empathy ............................................. 98
Class A/C’s Drawings of Historical Empathy ................................................................................. 98
Class C/A’s Drawings of Historical Empathy ............................................................................... 104
Discussion ................................................................................................................................................. 112
Feeling Care ................................................................................................................................. 112
Evidence ...................................................................................................................................... 113
Imagination ................................................................................................................................. 114
Multiple Perspectives .................................................................................................................. 115
Contextual Knowledge ................................................................................................................ 116
Open-Mindedness ....................................................................................................................... 117
It is Difficult to Do Well ............................................................................................................... 119
Making Judgements .................................................................................................................... 119
Historical Empathy Pathway .............................................................................................................. 122
Summary ................................................................................................................................................... 124

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CHAPTER 5 ....................................................................................................................................... 126
FINDINGS: DEVELOPING SOPHISTICATED HISTORICAL EMPATHY ................................. 126
Overview ................................................................................................................................................... 126
Findings Based on Lucy and Claire’s Workbooks ......................................................................... 126
Affective Learning Tasks.............................................................................................................. 126
Cognitive Learning Tasks ...................................................................................................... 130
Findings Based on Lucy and Claire’s Assessment Tasks ............................................................ 134
Lucy’s Essay ................................................................................................................................. 140
Findings Based on Lucy and Claire’s Essays about Gallipoli .................................................... 140
Claire’s Essay ............................................................................................................................... 141
Comparing Lucy and Claire’s essays’ ........................................................................................... 142
Findings Based on the Assessment Tasks for Class A/C and Class C/A and the Student
Feedback Survey ..................................................................................................................................... 144
Discussion ................................................................................................................................................. 149
Progression and My Instructional Intervention .......................................................................... 149
Progression and the New Zealand Curriculum ........................................................................... 158
Progression and the National Certificate of Educational Achievement ..................................... 159
Progression and History Education Research ............................................................................. 160
Progression and Gender ............................................................................................................. 163
Summary ................................................................................................................................................... 164
CHAPTER 6 ....................................................................................................................................... 166
FINDINGS: SEQUENCING AFFECTIVE AND COGNITIVE LEARNING ACTIVITIES .......... 166
Overview ................................................................................................................................................... 166
Findings Based on the Interview Transcripts ............................................................................... 166
Findings Based on the Student Feedback Survey Data .............................................................. 170
Findings Based on the Classroom Response System ................................................................... 172
Findings Based on Completion of Affective and Cognitive Learning Tasks ........................ 172
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Discussion ................................................................................................................................................. 172
Summary ................................................................................................................................................... 176
CHAPTER 7 ....................................................................................................................................... 178
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ................................................................................................. 178
Overview ................................................................................................................................................... 178
Three assertions ..................................................................................................................................... 178
Limitations of the Study ....................................................................................................................... 183
Affective and Cognitive Sequencing ........................................................................................... 183
Methodological Choices .............................................................................................................. 184
Pathways, Typologies and Models .............................................................................................. 185
Historical Content ....................................................................................................................... 185
Summary ..................................................................................................................................... 186
The Contribution of this Study to My Practice .............................................................................. 186
The Contribution of this Study Beyond Eastside School ............................................................. 189
Implications for Further Research ................................................................................................... 192
APPENDICES .................................................................................................................................... 194
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................... 229

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