Conceptions about the nature of accounts in history : an explorarory study of students ideas and teachers assumptions about students understandings in Singapore

摘要

This thesis is an exploratory study of students' understandings about the nature ofudaccounts in history, and teachers' assumptions about those ideas. The study wasuddesigned to achieve two related objectives: first, to explore and map out the range ofudideas students in Singapore may hold about the nature of historical accounts, andudsecond, to examine the assumptions teachers in Singapore may have about theirudstudents' understandings.udSixty-nine students (fifty in Year 9 and nineteen in Year 12) across nine institutionsudcompleted two written task-sets designed to generate data on students' ideas aboutudaccounts. Group interviews were conducted with all students. 93 teachers respondedudto a questionnaire survey designed to explore teachers' ideas about students'udunderstanding of accounts. In-depth interviews with nine teachers were carried out toudsupplement questionnaire data. Data analysis of students' ideas pointed to a broadudrange of student conceptions about accounts, and to the possibility of viewing theseudconceptions progressively across a 'factual-multiple-criterial' continuum. Analysisudof data that focused on teachers' assumptions about students' ideas revealed theudpossibility of viewing students' conceptions in 'simple' to 'complex' terms, rangingudprogressively from (i) static and binary, to (ii) subjective and perspectiveful, and toud(iii) dynamic and multi-dimensional.udThis thesis makes the argument that approaching the teaching of school history in audresponsive way requires that Singapore teachers recognize the range ofudpreconceptions that students hold about accounts. Specifically, this is done by engaging students' ideas to help them make sense of new knowledge and developudtheir disciplinary understandings about history. The implications these findings haveudon planning, research, assessment and practice are discussed in the context of audhistory pedagogy that is both receptive to an understanding of the methodologicaludunderpinnings of the discipline, and responsive to the notion of developing students'udunderstandings of historical knowledge.