Assessing historical literacy among 12-year-old Finns

ABSTRACT

The new national core curriculum has been put into operation in Finland. Teaching and learning is intended to focus on historical literacy. In this paper, we study how it can be assessed with a pen-and-paper test, and what that reveals in regards to the mastering of historical literacy among elementary pupils. To study this, we designed a test where pupils analysed sources, answered open-ended questions, and filled out weighted multiple-choice questions. Furthermore, we implemented the test with the think-aloud method. The results from this indicate the way 12-year-olds read historical documents and formulate their own interpretations. The results demonstrate that most of the pupils succeeded in acquiring historical information from different sources, as well as understanding the interpretative nature of historical knowledge. The test also revealed that pupils can identify some intentions of the sources’ producers, as well as reasoning through their own interpretations using a single source. Some pupils, however, could not process the cognitive noise inherent to the test (i.e. conflicting sources). Some of them also considered an authoritative source to be principally more reliable than other sources. Our study sheds light on which kind of task can be used at the elementary level to assess historical literacy.

KEYWORDS:

• History education
• historical literacy
• assessing historical literacy
• elementary pupils
• disciplinary knowledge

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The analysis is based on Rantala and Khawaja (2016).

2. The transcription was originally in Finnish and translated into English for this article.

3. The options were: a) The textbook authors have used different sources that tell that the Church condemned the ideas of Copernicus, and they left out the sources that told the opposite story; b) The cardinal was lying; c) The textbook authors didn't know that some churchmen supported the ideas of Copernicus; d) The textbook authors didn't find the cardinal's letter an important source.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Academy of Finland [grant number 294491].

Notes on contributors

Jukka Rantala

Jukka Rantala is a professor of history and social studies education in the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland. His interests centre on historical thinking and learning of history.

Amna Khawaja

Amna Khawaja is a doctoral student in the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland. Her interests centre on assessment and learning of history in the elementary level.