RT Journal Article
T1 Historical thinking, causal explanation and narrative discourse in trainee teachers in Spain
A1 Sáiz Serrano, Jorge
A1 Gómez Carrasco, Cosme Jesús
A1 López Facal, Ramón
K1 Historical thinking
K1 Narrative analysis
K1 Causal explanation
K1 History teaching
K1 Teacher training
AB This paper examines the historical thinking skills of 283 students studying a Primary Education degree in Spain. In order to achieve this objective, we analysed texts they had written on a substantive historical event: the Christian expansion into the Muslim-ruled territories of the Iberian Peninsula. We employed a qualitative methodology in order to determine the level of presentational complexity according to the knowledge demonstrated, the second-order concepts included in their texts and the way in which the causal application of the process was expressed. This was combined with a quantitative assessment of the levels of complexity and their relationship with the cognitive levels of the texts according to the SOLO taxonomy. The results, demonstrated in the task, confirm that trainee teachers have extremely limited skills relating to history and a simplistic model of causal explanation, based on the contrast between union/hegemony and disintegration/weakness. This discourse is inherited from the national narrative imposed since the times of 19th century historiography
PB Historical Encounters: A journal of historical consciousness, historical cultures, and history education
YR 2018
FD 2018-06
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10347/17000
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10347/17000
LA eng
NO Serrano, J. S., Gómez Carrasco, C. J., & Facal, R. L. (2018). Historical thinking, causal explanation and narrative discourse in trainee teachers in Spain. Historical Encounters: A journal of historical consciousness, historical cultures, and history education, 5(1), 16-30.
NO This paper is the result of research project EDU2015-65621-C3-R “Competencias sociales para una ciudadanía democrática: análisis, desarrollo y evaluación”; EDU2015-65621-C3-2-R “La evaluación de las competencias y el desarrollo de capacidades cognitivas sobre historia en Educación Secundaria Obligatoria”; EDU2014-51720- REDT RED 14 “Red de investigación en enseñanza de las ciencias sociales"
DS Minerva
RD 4 may 2026