Much of the research on historical thinking and historical understanding has been based on the Piagetian concept of global stage constraints on learning. Such research has led to arguments against teaching history at the elementary level and lent supp...
Much of the research on historical thinking and historical understanding has been based on the Piagetian concept of global stage constraints on learning. Such research has led to arguments against teaching history at the elementary level and lent support to the teaching of history according to student's developmental stage of cognition. This paper contrasts Piagetian-based research with psychological work in the areas of knowledge-based and domain-specific knowledge restructuring theories of development (domain-specific cognition theory). Drawing on ideas from information processing perspectives on teaching of critical thinking, this approach suggests both new directions for studying the development of historical understanding and implications for history instruction.
In the domain-specific knowledge restructuring view, cognitive development is dependent on the acquisition of frameworks of specific concepts and integrations between these concepts. These frameworks or representations of organize prior knowledge usually have been termed "schemata." Although previous research on historical cognition has been largely based on the significance of a relationship between development level and historical understanding (and has indicated that such understanding appears late in development), history, as a discipline frame, is a specific domain of knowledge which has distinctive characteristics in its knowledge structure and methodology, and the development of historical thinking depends on the formation of schema as restructuring of prior knowledge, specific in the discipline of history.
Within this framework, some implications can be drawn on classroom instruction in history. To enhance historical thinking and understanding, history teachers should have relevant subject matter knowledge base and thinking abilities.
Also, teacher's subject matter knowledge is transformed by instructional context, such as characteristics of students, teaching material, classroom environment, and this pedagogical content knowldege is essential for instruction of historical understanding. Thus, teacher education should emphasize the subject matter knowldege restructuring and pedagogical content knowledge of history teachers.