‘I Saw Angry People and Broken Statues’: Historical Empathy in Secondary History Education

Figures & data

TABLE 1. Coding scheme for the analysis of the written accounts

Category	Code	Example
–Use of given information	Use of information-elements from the given information 0: no elements 1: one or two elements 2: three or more elements	1: ‘’The statues were torn down and broken.’ 2: ‘Some people criticized the church. These people were called Protestants. Most of them were poor, whereas the church was rich. In the end, a rebellion occurred.’
–Additional (correct) information	Use of information-elements from students’ prior knowledge 0: no elements 1: one or more elements	1: ‘Luther wrote things on a piece of parchment.’
–Concrete elaboration	Addition of concrete details from imagination to enliven the narrative 0: no elements 1: one or more elements	1: ‘He hears people screaming, glass scattering and the sound of falling stones’
–Incorrect information	Use of incorrect information-elements 0: no incorrect elements 1: one or more incorrect elements	1: ‘Philip II came to the church and killed everyone.’
-Acknowledgement or display of emotions	Acknowledgement or display of the emotions of an historical actor 0: no emotions 1: emotion literally taken from the given information 2: emotions not taken from the given information (coming from the imagination of the student).	1: ‘The protestants were angry’2: ‘My energy to live was gone in an instant.’
–Moral judgement	Judgement of the Iconoclasm 0: no judgement 1: judgement, whether positive or negative	1: ‘I think the Protestants were right.’
–Display of presentism	Display of presentism 0: no presentism 1: display of hindsight or present values, clashing with historical context	1: ‘If all the angry men would sign a petition and present that list to the King, they would not need to destroy the church.’
- Explanation of perspectives	Presence of perspective taking (one side or both) 0: no perspectives explained 1: one perspective (Catholic or Protestant) taken and explained 2: Both perspectives taken and explained	1: ‘The Protestants were angry because they were not allowed a church of their own.’ 2: ‘They didn’t think it fair that the Catholic church was so rich, and Philip thought the Protestants didn’t have the right to exist because they were not obedient to the church.’
- Use of suggested storyline	Presence of elements from the given storyline* 0: no use of the given storyline 1: use of the given storyline	1: ‘He thought his parents had been right in forbidding him to go and look.’

*Due to the nature of the task, the ‘use of given storyline’ was only scored for the First-Person Writing Task condition and Third-Person Writing Task condition. The Factual Recount task condition was not given a storyline to work with.

TABLE 2. Mean scores and standard deviations on the pre- and post-knowledge tests in the three conditions

	First-Person Writing Task (N = 75)		Third-Person Writing Task (N = 66)		Factual Recount Task (N = 75)
	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD
Pre-test	4.10	2.55	4.96	2.99	3.98	2.70
Post-test	4.82	2.55	5.64	2.69	5.00	2.66

TABLE 3. Mean scores and standard deviations on the situational interest questionnaire in the three conditions

	First-Person Writing Task (N = 80)		Third-Person Writing Task (N = 68)		Factual Recount Task (N = 75)
	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD
Situational interest*	3.09	1.09	3.07	1.02	2.92	.97

*On a six-point Likert scale.

TABLE 4. Results of the written accounts analysis and of a Pearson chi-square test (N = 231)

	First-Person Writing Task	Third-Person Writing Task	Factual Recount Task
	N = 83	N = 69	N = 79	χ^2	p
Use of given information				31.26	.00**
- No	6	8	0
- 1 or 2 elements	42	36	19
-3 or more elements	35	25	60
Use of additional information from prior knowledge				46.99	.00**
- No	66	55	65	0.24	.89
-1 or more elements	17	14	14
Use of additional information: narrative elaboration				59.15	.00**
- No	31	23	70
-1 or more elements	52	46	9
Incorrect statements				7.51	.02*
- No incorrect statements	66	42	50
- Incorrect statement(s)	17	27	29
Emotional elements				17.60	.00**
- No emotional elements	33	24	49
- Emotional elements from sources	29	28	25
- Other emotional elements	21	17	5
Moral judgements				6.69	.04*
- No	43	48	54
- Positive or negative	40	21	25
Display of presentism				7.86	.02*
- No	59	56	70
- Hindsight or present values	24	13	9
Explanation of perspective(s)				47.00	.00**
- No	56	46	23
- Catholic or Protestant	22	19	34
- Catholic and Protestant	3	1	22
Use of given storyline				6.37	.01*
- Not used	66	42
- Used	17	27

** < .01; * < .05.