Csikos Gabor thesis competence based History teaching

CCoommppeetteennccee bbaasseedd
HHiissttoorryy tteeaacchhiinngg
By
CCssiikkóóss GGáábboorr
History (MA) – Psychology (MA)
Submitted to
FFAACCUULLTTYY OOFF EEDDUUCCAATTIIOONN AANNDD PPSSYYCCHHOOLLOOGGYY
in the partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of master
of arts in
HHiissttoorryy aanndd PPssyycchhoollooggyy TTeeaacchheerr
at the
EEÖÖTTVVÖÖSS LLOORRÁÁNNDD UUNNIIVVEERRSSIITTYY
2010, Budapest

2
Contents
Contents 2
Abstract 3
Review of the thesis 5
Brief history of History teaching 6
Competencies for learning history 13
Method 15
Results and discussion 16
Review of Hungarian history books 21
Conclusion 25
Test used for the thesis 27
Drawings 29
Bibliography 31

3
Abstract
The pivotal difficulty in learning history is the fact that this subject is mainly
language based and therefore demands symbolic representation from
students from the very beginning. In Bruner’s theory this is the highest level
of thinking after the action-based enactive representation and the so called
iconic representation which one is image-based. But, despite these
differences, Bruner also suggests that all children are capable of learn any
material, the only question being the method of teaching. Therefore this
challenge mostly is addressed to the teachers and not to students. And of
course the educational system is put to a test as well
In the Hungarian educational system children first encounter History in third
grade; students are approximately eight years old at that time. It is still not a
regular, well – structured History learning at that time, but pupils work
mostly with legends from different periods of the Hungarian History as a
prelude of curricular History classes. It is a major difference from the
American practice because they start learning History already in nursery
through the history of their town, institutions, family. This method seems to
combine the different levels of thinking mentioned above with more
efficiency than the Hungarian system. It was an interesting question whether
under such different circumstances, are the Hungarian children capable of
handling symbolic representations to understand cause and effect and to
exercise source critics. Can they reach the same level of historical
competencies found in American schools?
The diagnostic session is mainly based on CHATA (Concepts of History and
Teaching Approaches) project established by Alaric Dickinson and Peter Lee
to measure the Historical knowledge of the students living in English
speaking countries. Pupils were given discrimination tasks of cause and
effect with English historical events exchanged for contextually equivalent
alternatives.
Results showed that despite the different teaching methods, the difference
between the achievement level and the test standards are not significant
therefore nine years old children demonstrate similar competency levels as
the American contemporaries.

4
The thesis also gives a critical review of three well – known Hungarian History
books used in primary schools. It seeks answers to questions like: What
reasons do they mention that make History worth learning? How do they
attempt to involve different levels of thinking? To what extent do depict the
complexity of life in past eras? Do they try to develop competencies like
cause and effect, critical view or empathy?
No perfect book exists, but the qualities of Hungarian History books are
good. Recently they gave priority to improvement of competencies rather
than lexical knowledge. For further research it would be desirable to give a
review for schoolbooks used in the last centuries and compare to those of
today.
KKeeyy wwoorrddss: teaching of History, cause and effect, source critics, levels of
thinking, CHATA

5
Review of the thesis
Csikós Gábor produced a thesis about competence – based History teaching of a high
standard. It is an important and very actual problem which raises the issue of when to
begin the teaching of History. The thesis is not limited to pure theorization, but with
the adaptation of CHATA project investigates whether in the chosen sample of ten
year old children the manipulation of symbolic representation can be demonstrated. In
the final part the author explores History books used in the 6th
grade from the
perspective of historical competencies. This short resume reveals that the structure of
thesis is logical, it is comprised of coherent units.
In the first major theoretical chapter Csikós Gábor reviews directly the history of
History teaching giving a good illustration about how competence based education
was arrived at. It was especially good that he interpreted the historical competencies
the summary of which clarifies important concepts for the reader. These served as a
good basis for the empirical study conducted by the author.
The presentation of the research is adequate, the coverage of methodological
background is proper. Besides publishing data Csikós Gábor included an analysis and
interpretation in the light of the cognitive abilities of the chosen group. I really like
that he covered flaws of the research measures and that he suggested relevant changes.
He compared his findngs with international data giving further evidence of the
methodological knowledge of the author.
The final part of the thesis reviews the most widely used History books in the sixt
grade. The author represents excellent critics using the theoretical framework of
Bruner. I appreciate that the author choose the suitable book for himself, which he
justified as well. Questions posed in the last chapters are excellent, they emphasize
really important paths for further research.
Referencing was consistently accurate, the literature incorporates articles of foreign
languages which is profound. The style has decent readability, but it is technical at the
same time. The use of technical terms is appropriate. Csikós Gábor made testimony to
his experts with the current thesis.
Suggested grade: 5 (excellent)
Budapest 14.05.2010.
Hegedűs Judit PhD
assistant lecturer
ELTE PPK
Neveléstudományi Intézet Pedagógiatörténeti Tanszék
1075 Budapest
Kazinczy u. 23-27. 3. emelet 307. szoba
Telephone: 06/1 461-4500/3852
E-mail: hegedus.judit@ppk.elte.hu

6
“Stories do not simply contain knowledge, they are themselves the
knowledge”
Jackson (cited by Lewis, 2004)
Brief history of History teaching
The timing of teaching chronological history has been a central issue in
debates among History teachers and theoreticians in Hungary. According
to the National Curriculum – operative since 1998 – children start to learn
chronological history in seventh grade – at the age of 13 years – instead
of the former practice when they encountered it at the age of 11. The
main reason of this change being that younger children are not capable to
understand the concept of time (MIKLÓSI, 1999). In contrast, if we are
compare countries based on the time when History is introduced to the
national syllabus, we find quite a wide range of diversity. While in Italy,
Mexico or Argentina History is one of the basic subjects even at primary
school, in other states it only appears at secondary school (CARRETEREO,
2002).
But, diversity may exist within a country as well. In 2000 in Hungary core
curriculum let primary schools to continue the practice that start
chronological History teaching in the fifth grade. Therefore two timing
exist now.
“Oh, too many dates” – reminiscing high school History classes one often
hears the common complaint from the lay person on the street. Research
also reinforces this view of History. Interviews conducted with 29 Turkish
children revealed that 6 of them think that History is about wars, 5 think
that it is about memorization, and according to 4 opinions History is equal
to the biographies of important persons (ALABAŞ, 2009). Is this true? Is

7
history a number line of important events? Do we only need to heap up
chronological data for understanding history?
The answer is an unambiguous no. Chronology is a very important but
only one aspect of historical knowledge. History cannot be understood
without competencies like critical thinking or comprehension of causality.
Abstraction is another problem: while during biology or geography the
discussed phenomenon can be demonstrated in its physical form, history
learning demands abstraction from the very first step. For example if the
teacher wants to teach the different forms of leaves to the students, he
may present them in real life, students can make observations, they can
even touch them. To summarize it briefly he can help students in every
level of Bruner’s theory which differentiates between three levels of
acquiring knowledge. The first level is known as enactive, meaning
through action; knowledge is acquired through the inclusion of physical
manipulation. For example, discussing medieval cousine medieval meals
are prepared with the students.
The second level is the iconic or image – based representation with which
information is acquired through visualizing images or mentally enacted
situations. The third highest level is the symbolic where the acquisition of
knowledge is achieved thorough linguistic symbols and abstract concepts.
These representational modalities might as well simultaneously be
present, the key to efficient education is to mobilize the greatest number
of levels during each class. (BRUNER, 1974).
History teaching mainly offers symbolic representations – or in some
cases iconic ones. (BRUNER 1978/1989)
Concepts of History – like revolution or state – can be described only at
the symbolic level. These concepts are cornerstones of learning History,
therefore the first attempts to analyze historical knowledge started with
the analysis of concepts in the 1950s. At that that time Piaget and
Inhelder have published their notable works upon the knowledge of
children, but they mainly focused on natural sciences. Authors of this era

8
– Charitom, Hallam, Ballard – adapted the methods of the aforementioned
scientists to humanities. They asked children to define the most basic
historical concepts, like peasant, king, revolution, factory and so on.
This method provided results that were not comparable to actual
knowledge of historical facts. Critiques involve that the amount of
concepts is too high and there is also a large impact of other fields as well,
for example sociology or economics. An additional effect is that substantial
concepts develop in an unpredictable manner with age (LEE, 1993).
At this time researches in the Socialist Bloc followed a somehow better
approach. Marxism gave a pivotal role to teach History as the history of
the working class and its fights for political power. The Internationale
summarizes this view of history in one line: “He who was nothing will
become everything!”
This kind of eschatology highlights the importance of cause and effect, the
comparison of past with present and finally the induction of historical
consequences and conclusions. These are discussed as basic elements of
historical knowledge nowadays as well, so this seems a progressive
approach to this topic. But the ideological perspective contains its own
limits. Students realized that mentioning class warfare is enough to
explain everything. Although their answers were correct but they
produced only schematic explanations without real knowledge. (KELEMEN,
1969)
Ideology locked the ways of further development in the Eastern Bloc, but
in the USA the 1970s proved to be an epoch in this theme. Although
researches in the Socialist Bloc continued during the 1970s – Kelemen
László, Hunyady György and Szebenyi Péter published the most notable
works in Hungary – but the ideologically influenced History teaching
strictly limited the opportunities for further development. The 1970s
meant a new start for the USA.

9
The change is in connection with the prosperity of memory researches.
Results showed that lexical knowledge can melt away swiftly therefore
theoretical framework should be provided for students rather than data.
History teaching should focus on a logical coherence that students can
fulfill with facts and figures. One of the main advocates of this new kind of
History teaching was Denis Shemilt, who proposed that development and
change should be the core elements of this logical coherence. This
perspective was also threatened by schematizing, but it gave a new
insight for researchers to change the Piagetian approach with more
complex methods (LEE, 1993).
The critics of Piaget broke down cognition into two different forms:
paradigmatic and narrative. The paradigmatic uses abstract concepts,
combines strict logical rules and empirical evidence to gain new insights.
Its main goal is to strive for truth. This is the view of natural sciences.
Contrarily the narrative cognition focuses on human acts and intentions
therefore the rules are less strict, the use of empirical evidence is strongly
limited. Interpretations play more extensive rules than in the former. This
view – used mainly in humanities – is seeking realism instead of absolute
truth. (KINYÓ, 2005). Although from an epistemological point of view this
differentiation does not hold true for a mature view of humanities and
sciences, but is representative of the countered image of these that is
presented to children through primary and secondary education.
In response to Piaget Bruner stated that age plays a minor role in
studying than earlier believed, because every subject can be learnt at any
time, just teachers need to adapt their lessons to the cognitive skills of
the students (Hallam). This was the opinion of Michael Zaccaria as well,
who explained the difficulties of learning History with the dominance of
symbolic representations. He drew the attention of teachers to including
enactive and iconic representations to make learning History easier for
younger students (ZACCARIA, 1978).

10
In the spirit of Bruner a new wave of research started in the 1980s.
CHATA (Concepts of History and Teaching Approaches) proved to be of
greatest significance. It should be discussed in detail because its results
are still applicable to build up competence based History teaching.
CHATA focused on students between the ages of seven and fourteen and
declared its commitment toward the latest methods and scientific results.
Beside Paper and Pencil tests interviews were conducted with the
participants (LEE,1993). 320 interviews have been prepared until 1997.
The main focus was on empathy to determine whether children are
capable to understand the purposes and intentions of historical persons.
The importance of social skills in the learning process has been
underestimated by Piaget. In early investigations children had to identify
what an observer seated on the other side of a plaster mountain range
would see. It was only after a certain age that children described a
perspective different from their own. But, Hughes (1975) found that
social context facilitates the handling of this situation: in his experiment
the participants had to imagine a situation where they have to hide from a
policeman. Children were able to solve this problem correctly, even
younger ones than it would be expected according to Piaget. So, social
context may facilitate one in taking over the perspective of the other. It is
easy to rush into concluding that alluding to social context in history
teaching facilitates empathy, but inferring from intentions is not
equivalent to that from visual cognitive stimuli. But, research on theory of
mind has shed light that these abilities co-occur. At the age of 4 to 6
years, perspective taking of both emotionality, intentionality and
motivation are sufficiently evolved as part of normal development. (BARON
– COHEN, 2001)
So, empathy is a readily available cognitive resource which history
teaching could be based on.
But, the CHATA project also found that historical knowledge is not equal to
empathy. Everyday psychological skills are not enough to comprehend the

11
values and the beliefs of the once lived people, and how their knowledge
translated into action.
Elaborating on intentionality the CHATA project introduced a battery of
novel tasks to investigate age differences in explanatory models. The test
asked the students about the Roman conquest of Britain. They had to
judge explanations why emperor Claudius started his campaign and
choose the two most adequate solutions. Explanations formed three
categories. The first type explains historical acts with personal causes,
views Claudius just as a human. An example is that “Claudius started the
war to gain more money and jewelry to become richer.” The explanations
of the second type are the institutional views that refer Claudius as an
emperor. A typical institutional answer is that “Claudius wanted to
establish peace with his war”. The third one is a situational analysis which
uses specific elements to explain a historical act. For example, in this case
the period of relative peace in the Empire in the middle of the first century
era and the reduction of the number of Rome dedicated British kings.
Every explanatory model is present at every age, although in the
beginning is dominated by the first group while in older age the third. In
this regard it can be claimed that children are capable more than simply
listening to narratives, i.e. passive reception (LEE, 1993). In parallel
research was initiated targeting the ages younger than seven. Studies by
Vancleaf in 1987 implicated that kindergarten children are not yet aware
of as historically essential concepts as the hour and the minute. It is
interesting to note that children demonstrate an interest toward the past,
especially toward their own (VANCLEAF, 1987). Moreover according to study
by Knight in 1990 they are able to partially comprehend the personal
dynamics of historical persons from other cultures already at the age of
five. This ability solidifies at the age of seven for the majority but some
three year olds are able to understand personal causes. In another study,
also in connection with the CHATA project, twenty percent of three year
olds was already able to consider situational factors (LEE, 1997).

12
The CHATA concluded with promising results. The research by Lee has for
example shown that the children at the age of seven to eight are already
able to provide source critics. (LEE, 1993). It has to be noted though that
to excavate these results the temporary downfall of research of the 1960s
was a necessity which resulted in the transformation of History education
in the USA. Such has not occurred in Hungary for the issue itself was not
raised.
What results the CHATA would have yielded in Hungary has not been the
subject of research so far. It is not a coincidence that in the former part of
the introduction the discussion of History education and research on the
historical concept of children have so intertwined. Although the cognitive
development of children cannot be doubted it is not a less important what
kind of stimuli are offered by the environment and what challenges school
poses.
While in Great Britain History teaching commences at age of five (HARNETT,
2007), the Hungarian education system introduces History teaching in
third grade, at the age of eight to nine. This is not History teaching in the
strict sense: students are confronted with history related texts during
Hungarian classes. The protagonists of these passages are legendary
historical persons. Chronological history learning only starts in fifth grade.
This practice is doubted by the Hungarian National Curriculum which
would initiate History teaching in seventh grade. The former concentric
education (covering the whole of History from fifth to ninth grade,
repeating it from ninth to twelfth grade, but with greater depth) is
replaced by linear (each historical era is only covered once). The current
thesis does not intend to be a judge over linear and concentric history
education. The current thesis aims at investigating whether age
characteristics and cognitive development alone justify the later
introduction of History teaching.

13
Before forwarding to the details of the present study it is valuable to note
what competences may be developed in the context of History teaching
based on current knowledge.
Competencies for learning history
“In our country, history courses have been accepted as a boring
memorizing course since quite recently it put the teacher in the center and
it was based on the approach of memorizing the informations on the
books.” – Alabaş Ramazan and Dilek Dursun give us a quintessential
report about the Turkish History teaching in their essay (ALABAŞ, 2009, p
1606.). They assert that it is best not to limit the discussion to deciding
about the exact content of the curriculum but to elaborate on how
historian thinking can be transmitted to students.
Historian thinking as a goal may seems elitist. Do we really need to train
historians in primary or secondary schools? The answer is yes. History is
not a finished process, not the collection of antiquity. There is a
permanent dialogue between past and present. As Carr explicated: “The
uncut reciprocal communication process between the historian and the
facts; endless dialogue between the past and the present” is history (cited
by ALABAŞ, 2009, p 1605). Therefore history is composed or need to be
composed. Not just by historians but by all of us who contact history. And
we all contact history by our family traditions, politics or economic
decisions.
In the light of this approach bald facts seem to play a secondary role.
Instead of data, historian competencies should be improved in students
to give them useful tools for constructing history.
So, historian thinking can be the goal to reach via the improvement of
competences. Historian thinking has three compartments: historical
sensitivity, historical understanding and critical thinking.

14
Historical sensitivity can be described as empathy toward outsider groups.
For example, History teaching should change Europe centrism to
multicultural approaches. The landing of Columbus in 1492 can be rather
showed as the encounter of two different cultures than just exploration
(CARRATERO, 2002). Or, when students have to judge rulers they should
dispense the standards of nowadays. For example for discussing the policy
of James I. it is irrelevant to talk about the standard of living of people,
because this feature gets priority in policies only in the 19th
century
(MASTERMAN, 2002). The standard of life is a crucial question anyway
because “different” is usually translated as “bad”. Trials by ordeal should
not be discussed in the frame of deficit theories – medieval people knew
less about the working mechanism of the world – but focus on the ethos
and social systems (BERTI, 2009).
Historical understanding refers to the understanding of historical
mechanisms, mostly chronology and causality (CAVE, 2002). The
importance of latter should not be underrated because it works as a
“psychological glue” to preserve our historical knowledge in unity. In
Great Britain softwares help students to understand what events caused a
historical event. Results showed that these programs improve the ability
to understand multi-causality and use specific causes for explanation
(MASTERMAN, 2002).
Critical thinking emerges through the aforementioned skills. Both
historical sensitivity and historical understanding are needed to give
relevant critics after the review of historical sources. Therefore it is
generally believed that the development of this skill should start later, but
this is not true. Although psychological development also helps this skill to
evolve in its complexity, children are not the passive receivers of history.
They are historians from the very beginning, they construct stories, so the
teacher must pay attention to the improvement of critical thinking at the
earliest stages. This was one of the major lesson of CHATA project. (LEE,
1997).

15
The first of the thesis investigates these competences at the age of ten.
The second part the thesis gives a review of History books used in the
sixth grade. Are they convenient to develop the aforementioned skills? Do
they emphasize historical sensitivity? Do they give guidelines to
understand cause and effect?
Textbooks of sixth grade seemed to be the most valuable to examine in
detail. Students have already met the Medieval era via history related
texts in an informal and unsystematic way; and this is the basic subject of
sixth grade history curriculum.
Method
Measures
Following the Hungarian research traditions, and to cover all ways of data
collection the exploratory questions targeting symbolic representation of
historical concepts was integrated with a replication of the CHATA study.
Defining concepts is a common introductory question in tests, as such
children will provided with the sense of familiarity and comfort before
filling in the CHATA questionnaire.
Historical understanding is tested by the adaptation of CHATA. In CHATA
the conquest of the British Isles was the theme, which has been replaced
by the life’s work of Széchenyi István (1791-1860). Széchenyi is a center
statesman of Hungarian history known as a great reformer: his donation
made possible to establish the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the
National Casino for political dialogues. In his works - the Hitel (Credit), the
Világ (World/Light) and the Stádium (Stage) – he made efforts to abolish
feudalism in Hungary. He plays an important role in Hungarian education
as well, at first he is being mentioned in some passages, but the detailed
explanation of his work is yet to only follow in seventh grade. Students of
fourth grade are aware of the identity of Széchenyi István, but not as

16
much in detail as legendary medieval historical characters, the threat of
schematic reproduction of prior knowledge is not relevant.
Historical sensitivity was assessed by the last task. Children were given a
coin with an inscription stating that the coin was made in 20 B.C. As the
core of historical sensitivity is comprised by theory of mind, the question
is evident, “is the child aware that the historical person is unable to
foresee the future?”
For the exploration of critical thinking a text was given to students.
Because of the aforementioned reasons – this is the highest level of
historical thinking – the development of this skill only appears in
secondary schools in the Hungarian education system.
Participants
28 pupils participated in the research. 21 of them were from the same
class, others came from other classes, but all were from the same school,
and were in their fourth grade.
Parents have been informed about the research in a parental meeting,
there were no refusals to participate. Participating in the test was
voluntary and took place during a lesson. All children seemed to enjoy the
tasks, probably as a result of their novelty.
Statistical measures
Content analysis was used to establish primary categories based on
content salience and response frequency. The primary categories were
subdivided into further secondary categories.
Results and discussion
Defining the concept of “revolution” only one student used causality as a
basis for explanation (“they do not want something”), six of them
mentioned aims: three of them declared freedom is the goal of revolution,
and three claimed that it is patria. Others defined revolution with listing

17
synonyms (two described it as a demonstration, two as a riot, six as a war
and seven as a fight).
A common answer was the description of physical attributes (to build, to
celebrate or to demonstrate, to destruct or to suffer losses). Remembering
was an important category too: one answer mentioned familial and seven
societal acts of remembering. Six students specified revolution to the
Hungarian revolution of 1956 or the demonstrations of 2006.
Characteristics of definitions
2%
12%
34%
25%
15%
12%
1
2
3
4
5
6
In accordance with previous results this task ended with weak results.
Answers remained at the level of iconic representations, most of the pupils
mentioned events for definition. They emphasized human losses, but only
a few of them mentioned goals, and even fewer causes. They cannot
conceptually differentiate (KELEMEN, 1963); it is commonly believed that
“revolution” is equal to “riot” (“Revolution is another name for riot”) or to
“civil war”. (“Revolution is a war within the country.”)
As a spontaneous response to an Arts class, children were instructed to
make illustrations based on the historical passage about the revolution of
1956. Many war connected subjects (airplane, machine gun) appeared in
Aims
Causes
Synonims
Description
Remebering
Concrete
events

18
the drawings that were not mentioned in the text. These pieces of
unsystematically collected data have also reinforced this phenomenon.
23 answers have been collected for the analysis of historical
understanding. One reason has been accepted by sixteen pupils, two by
two, three by one, four by two and five by one.
How many causes have been accepted by students
to explain?
9%
5%
9%
5%
72%
1
2
3
4
5
The relationship of events was commonly (79%) described as a chain; just
two answers (8%) marked some kind of interaction between causes.
Three pupils (13%) described no relationship.
The pattern of answers is more important than the correctness, because
pattern may indicate their thinking style about history. Purely incorrect
answers could not be found anyway, cause and effect are well
differentiated and they are not changeable. The main difficulty was the
handling of many viewpoints at the same time. Patterns of the training
task – where they had to explain how a cup broke into pieces – showed
that it was not abstract thinking that was the main difficulty for them.
Most probably, there were too many elements in the causality web. Hence
for further research tasks with smaller causal complexity should be
preferred.

19
Most of the students – 18 persons – gave correct answer in the task of
historical sensitivity, but only three of them identified the exact reason
why this coin is a fake. They discovered the paradox that future could not
been foreseen from the present, not even if this present is the part of the
past now. Student had to comprehend that his knowledge is different from
the knowledge of a person who lived in the past. Others did not notice this
discrepancy and used false reasons: like in ancient times there were not
minting or a coin could not survive such a long time. 35% of the answers
did not use reasons at all.
“No reason” was a large group within the answers that accepted this coin
as valid. They used the high level of minting as the main argument.
Finally, critical thinking was tested by a false historical source. It was a
modified version of the test used in CHATA project: the thesis gave
priority to elaborative answers because the lack of interviews made it
important to use tasks that may give introspection to the children’s
cognitive style.
Pupils had to decide whether the text is reliable or not. More than the half
of the participants, 16 pupils did not accept the text as a trustworthy
source. Some of them used more than one argument to verify their claim.
22 answers mentioned discrepancy within the text: three submitted
putative anachronism (“in the ancient times no weapons were produced”),
seven questioned the reliability of the author, who was, as noted
correctly, too young when the described events happened. Twelve
students claimed that the source is false because of the excessive number
of enemies killed. Five answers mentioned outside reasons like the
absence of literacy in that era, or that no sources can survive that many
years or the anonymity of the author.

20
10 students found the source valid. 70% of them argued that the
mentioned historical figure existed therefore the source most be valid. It
is amazing because children studies the concept of legend in the third
grade, which declares that stories about real persons can contain
mysterious, fictional elements as well. (BURAI – FARAGÓ, 2006) Other
reasons were that no one can lie to science or that other sources surely
strengthen his claims. Answers denying the validity of the source were
represented more complex arguments.
Summarizing the main points of former thoughts results show congruence
with former investigations. Definitions need to symbolic representations to
use, but this is limited by the cognitive style of this age group. Visuality -
appeared in the answers mentioning physical features - and emotionality
domains their thinking. (KALMÁR, 1972) Despite these facts representation
of concepts were not far from solution. For further research interviews
need to reveal children’s theories about these concepts. Questions should
focus on the dissociation of similar concepts. For example: what is the
difference between war and revolution? How can you explain a slogan, like
“it is revolution in the treatment of illness”?
Results of critical thinking were congruent with the CHATA project. This is
an interesting fact because of the aforementioned differences between the
Anglo – Saxon and Hungarian education systems. Patterns of solutions
were similar; both of them emphasized the excessive number of killed
enemies and the plausibility of the author as a main argument of denying
validity.
Many answers for the historical sensitivity task focused on physical
attributions of the coin (ability of minting, passed time since the
production). For further research interviews should be used to focus
children attention to the paradox itself and ask them to give explanations
to that discrepancy.

21
Summarizing the main tendencies of the research it seems that the
starting point of chronological history teaching in the fifth grade is not that
early. Participants of this research are has just begun their studies in the
fourth grade therefore they have almost a whole year until the fifth grade.
It seems that students have the base of cognitive abilities to learn history.
Education has a pivotal role to help these abilities evolve and improve.
Review of Hungarian history books
For this chapter three history books have been used: Történelem 6. A
középkor és a kora újkor története (History 6. History of the Middle Ages
and the Early Modern History) by Horváth Andrea and Horváth Levente;
Történelem 6. (History 6) by Horváth Péter and Hámori Péter; and
Történelemkönyv az általános iskola hatodik osztálya számára (History
book for the sixth grade of primary school) by Bánhegyi Ferenc.
Instead of a detailed analysis the current thesis focuses on how each book
makes attempts to improve the aforementioned competencies, and to give
a historian view of history. Undoubtedly, the books remain only the basis
of history and the teacher is also having a great impact how students
encounter history. But, books are the starting point of learning, it is the
reference point which students return to when they are studying at home.
Only the Horváth – Hámori book gives reasons why history is worth to
study. “Who gets acquainted with the past, understands the present
better… Movies, novels, paintings tell more to historically-minded people.
He can easily join themes that adults are used to talking about. If he
meets historical monuments during his journeys he may remember many
interesting facts. It is not solely because of such pragmatic goals that
people deal with the past, but because of the fact that this knowledge is
valuable and beautiful as well.”

22
This prologue gives an alternative to the dominant value of pragmatism
today, which stresses the utility of things. Beside this alternative the
prologue makes it clear that even theoretical knowledge can be utilized in
everyday life. Nevertheless, the opposite view should also be expressed;
too much theory makes History artificial. One example for this is the strict
landmarks of epochs. In all of the books appears the fact that medieval
lasted from 476 until 1492. These kinds of epochs make the evolution of
historical sensitivity more difficult, make the student feel an outsider to
history. Although in the book by Horváth Andrea and Horváth Levente it is
mentioned that the dividing of the timeline into historical periods has been
introduced only in the 17th
century, this idea is not constantly referred
back through the book.
How can periods be explained? Enactive representations may be useful: as
we cannot feel that we passed through the border of a county – although
this border is marked red in the maps – people living in the past could not
feel the change of eras. Both drawing borders for counties and making
eras in history are artificial.
Many attempts to improve historical sensitivity can be noted. In the
Horváth Andrea – Horváth Levente book a fictional travelogue informs the
reader about the life in Europe in the beginning of the fifth century.
Descriptions of definitions, detailed information about societal forms imply
that history is a constructed concept because we and those who lived in
the past have the same knowledge.
A third way is represented by the Bánhegyi book which utilizes a highly
complex method for the development of empathy. It occurs in the
stimulus material that a historical event is pictured through later
illustrations followed by posing the question of what is not authentic in
this illustration. This is extremely salient on page 140 where arguments
have to be collected for the inauthenticity of the painting of Dugovics
Titusz by Wagner Sándor. This a highly visual method for two historical
periods need to be simultaneously considered. It is to be feared that only

23
excelling students will be capable for quality answers. It is an unfortunate
as well that this method does not consequently reoccur in the book and it
often occurs that the date of creation is not implied next to later
illustrations, hence the era of origin is not noted at the mourning of
Hunyadi László.
Historical empathy can be further developed if the events are more
brought into personal proximity with the students. The books of Horváth –
Horváth and Horváth – Hámori follow distinct paths in this regard. In the
first case anecdotes and interesting facts tabulated in boxes are frequent
(egg of Columbus or the execution of an Indian king). These are such brief
stories which colorize the data – and event focused main text make
studying entertaining and able to arouse interest. It also demonstrates,
this being a significant result, to the life of past lived people was not
merely an endless chain of battles and contracts.
The Horváth – Hámori follows a different path. This is the only one which
includes the enactive from the Brunerian levels. For example in the case
of medieval meals. The motivating and learning enhancing effect of
personal experience and its significance in insight learning cannot be
doubted. Of course as every method this also carries with it risks, so it
must be applied with care. For example, if someone does not like the taste
of medieval food it might induce a negative image that medieval men
were primitive. That is why it is important to emphasize that is something
is different from us, it does not mean that it is necessarily bad. This is
exactly what is absent from the book by Horváth – Horváth in the chapter
about early modern cities which describes cities as filthy. This is
problematic because the concept of hygiene is relative. Development of
empathy could be facilitated if the children were asked to write down on a
piece of paper how many times they wash their hair or their hands.
Summarizing anonymous responses it might be discovered that there are
great differences even in one class, let alone different historical periods.
This could also be used to dismember the “other – bad” parallel.

24
Cause – effect relationships have been emphasized in each book, it is very
characteristic that all the three causes are present (personal, institutional
and situational). The only exception is king Mathias and the period
following him. It is strange why the books have only underlined the
shortsight of the barons at the coronation of Wladyslaw the Second which
can at most be regarded as an institutional cause. It could be of greater
importance – none of the books covers it – to elaborate on international
affairs, that Hungary only has the chance against the solidifying Ottoman
Empire if it is led by a dynasty with international influence. Next to the
Habsburgs only Jagellons could be taken into consideration, hence the
election of Wladyslaw was a logical and responsible step. (Engel, 2005). It
is important to emphasize this “barons longing for a crown of the weak
handed king” as an image depicting contemporary Hungarian elite
negatively, and can even reinforce the pessimistic Hungarian national
awareness.
The Horváth – Horváth book, which provides graphs next to the general
discussion of medieval resources (causes of the famine of 1032), is
extremely suitable for the transmission of the historian perspective.
Searching for causality is evidently a priority of the case of Hungarian
history. Next to factual questions with expects argumentation, which
mobilizes diverse knowledge.
Summarizing the main aspects, the Horváth – Horváth book is to be
preferred because it contains the largest number of elements, which
develops historical competences covered in former chapters. This does not
mean that the other books are bad, since all are pervaded by the spirit of
competence development. It rather means that this book is the best
among the already good. It applies methods and tools (debate questions,
publishing of sources, anecdotes) which are less consequently realized in
the other books. This is the only book which although describing the
landing of Columbus as a discovery, it also notes that it is a meeting of

25
worlds. It is the responsibility of the teacher to emphasize this during the
course of the education.
Conclusion
The current thesis aimed at reviewing what competencies may be
developed through History teaching.
According to research these competences include: historical sensitivity,
historical understanding and critical thinking. Considering development
would be farfetched without knowing actual skills of students. The thesis
explored the basics of historical knowledge on a sample of students who
are going to start to learn chronological history. A surprising but
reinforcing discovery was that despite the differences of national curricula
results were congruent with CHATA. The Anglo-Saxon curricula develop
the historical knowledge of children from kindergarten on via local or
familial history, but in Hungary history appears only in the third grade in
historical readings, therefore major differences were expected.
After this exploration the thesis reviewed the three most popular
Hungarian history books. All of them pay much attention to the
improvement of competencies. A tendency can be seen that lexical
knowledge has been marginalized for the sake of competencies. A
systematic analysis of the books from former decades would be beneficial
to explore what points of view were considered to be important earlier.
But this thesis was limited to the present to explore how the Hungarian
education system translates theory into practice.
It would be also beneficial to investigate the knowledge of students in
sixth grade to measure the effects of the books. But this is a complex
question. Development cannot be solely explained with the effect of
education, cognitive maturation also plays a principal role.
As it seems the thesis did not exhaust its topic. Many relevant questions
revealed from this research that may serve as a base for further

26
investigations. The comprehensive investigation should be followed by a
research focusing on detail. Mostly historical sensitivity may count on
attention, it is the most underrated competency nowadays; even this
thesis focused on its base. Further elaboration of this competency is
burdened by difficulty of measurement, but it is worth to accomplish
because this competency may lead us toward a more empathic society.

27
Test used for the thesis
Show why the cup broke?
Choose any boxes which help explain why the cup broke. (The boxes are not in a special
order.) Make the best explanation you can. Draw in arrows to make the joins. An arrow from
one box to another means: the first box helps to explain the second box.
Use as many joins as you need. You can have more arrows from or to another box. But do not
make joins that do not help to explain why the cup broke. Make the middle box happen!
Show, why Széchenyi István aided Hungary to improve?
The cup was
made of china.
The floor was
hard.
The cup was
breakable. Jane and Fred both
tried to grab the cup.
Jane and Fred
dropped the cup.
The cup hit the
floor.
So, the cup
broke..
Széchenyi István was
rich.
Széchenyi realized the
underdevelopment of
Hungary.
Széchenyi established
the National
Academy.
Széchenyi made
western journeys.
Széchenyi made
donations to build
Lánchíd (Chain Bridge)
between Buda and Pest.
Széchenyi was
benevolent and
sophisticated..
So, Széchenyi
promoted the
development of
Hungary.

28
A researcher finds a forgotten text.
About the year of 500 lived a very brave king of Britons named Arthur. Arthur and his knights
fought a big battle at Hill Badon against the Saxons. Arthur himself killed 960 enemies. His
victory made him a great hero. The reason I knew this is that I born in the year when the
battle had fought.
If you were the researcher would you believe the source? Why?
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
“This coin has been minted in 20 before Christ.” – Is it possible to be written to a coin or
this coin is just a fake?
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________

31
Bibliography
ALABAŞ (2009) ALABAŞ, RAMAZAN – DILEK, DURSUN: Primary school students’
conceptions of history In Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences (2009) I. pp. 1605–
1610
BARON – COHEN(2001) BARON-COHEN, SIMON: Theory of mind in normal development
and autism In. Prisme, 2001, 34, pp. 174-183.
BERTI (2009) BERTI, ANNA EMILIA – BALDIN, ISABELLA – TONEATTI,
LAURA: Empathy in history. Understanding a past institution (ordeal) in children and
young adults when description and rationale are provided in Contemporary Educational
Psychology(2009) 34. pp. 278–288
BRUNER (1978,1989) BRUNER, J.S.: Hogyan tanulunk meg szavakkal
cselekedni? In: Kalmár, M. (szerk.) Fejlődéspszichológia Szöveggyűjtemény II. 1989.
Tankönyvkiadó. 161-178
BURAI – FARAGÓ (2006) BURAI, LÁSZLÓNÉ – DR. FARAGÓ, ATTILÁNÉ: Kézikönyv a 3.
osztályos Hétszínvirág olvasókönyv és munkafüzet használatához. 2006. Apáczai Kiadó,
Celldömölk
CARRETERO (2009) CARRETERO, MARIO – JACOTT, LILIANA. LÓPEZ – MANJO,
ASUNCIÓN: Learning history through textbooks: are Mexican and Spanish students taught
the same Learning and Instruction (2002) 12. pp. 651–665
CAVE (2002) CAVE, PETER: Teaching the history of empire in Japan
and England International Journal of Educational Research(2002) 37 pp. 623–641
ENGEL – KRISTÓ – KUBINYI(2005) Engel Pál- Kristó Gyula – Kubinyi András:
Magyarország története, 1301-1526.Osiris Kiadó. Budapest. 2005.
HALLAM HALLAM, R. N. "Piaget and Thinking in History." In M. Ballard, editor.
New Movements in the Study and Teaching History. URL: www.labour-
history.org.uk/History_teaching/thinking%20in%20history.pdf (2007-12-09)
HARNETT (2007) HARNETT, PENELOPE: History and children in the early years –
Why history matters? címmel 2007 februárjában megrendezett konferencián elhangzott
beszéd internetes elérhetőség
http://www.history.ac.uk/whyhistorymatters/whyhistorymatters.rtf (2007-12-09)
KALMÁR (1972) KALMÁR, MAGDA: Tízéves tanulók tudásszintje környezetismeret
tárgyban in Magyar Pszichológiai Szemle (1972)
KELEMEN (1969) KELEMEN, LÁSZLÓ: A tanulók gondolkodása 6-10 éves korban
1969.Tankönyvkiadó. Budapest
KELEMEN (1963) KELEMEN, LÁSZLÓ: A 10-14 éves tanulók tudásszintje és
gondolkodása 1963. Tankönyvkiadó Budapest

32
KINYÓ (2005) KINYÓ, LÁSZLÓ A narratív készség fejlődése és szerepe a
történelemtanításban in Magyar Pedagógia (2005) 2. URL:
www.magyarpedagogia.hu/document/Kinyo_MP1052.pdf (2007-12-08)
LEE (1993) LEE, PETER: Progression in children’s ideas about
History. Project CHATA URL:
www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/recordDetail?accno=ED388531 (2007-12-09)
LEE (1997) LEE, PETER – DICKINSON, ALARIC – SHBY, ROSALYN:
„Just another Emperor”: Understanding action in the past. In: International Journal of
Educational Research (1997) XXVII./ 3. pp 233-244
LEWIS (2004) LEWIS, P.J. Trying to teach well: a story of small discoveries In:
Teaching and Teacher Education (2004) 20. pp. 231–242
MASTERMAN (2002) MASTERMAN, LIZ – SHARPLES, MIKE: A theory-informed
framework for designing software to support reasoning about causation in history in
Computers & Education (2002) 38. pp. 165–185
MIKLÓSI (1999) MIKLÓSI, LÁSZLÓ: Sirassuk vagy vigadjunk? – Egy
modernizációs kísérlet margójára – in Új Pedagógiai Szemle (1999) 6. URL:
www.oki.hu/cikk.php?kod=1999-06-np-Miklosi-Sirassuk.html (2007-12-08)
Overview of Standards in Historical Thinking URL:
http://nchs.ucla.edu/standards/thinking5-12.html (2007-12-09)
VANCLEAF (1987) VANCLEAF, DAVID W. - STRICKLAND, ERIC V. Kindergarten
Children's Knowledge of History: Concepts and Sources in Southern Social Studies
Quarterly (1987) September
ZACCARIA (1978) ZACCARIA, MICHAEL A.: "The Development of Historical
Thinking: Implications for the Teaching of History." In The History Teacher 11 (1978) pp.
323-340. URL: www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/recordDetail?accno=EJ180269 (2007-12-09)

Csikos Gabor thesis competence based History teaching

More Related Content

Similar to Csikos Gabor thesis competence based History teaching (20)

Csikos Gabor thesis competence based History teaching