Historical thinking skills and mastery of multiple document tasks

Abstract

We investigated whether historical thinking skills as measured with a standardized test are related to performance in a multiple document task. After 111 German 9th graders completed a standardized test of historical thinking skills, they worked through a computer-based learning environment that included eight documents while answering two open-ended questions regarding the attitudes reflected in the documents towards the introduction of the German Emergency Law. Historical thinking skills were associated with using more information from the documents and with identifying causes for the different attitudes towards introducing the law. Further, closed-ended items that were administered after the learning material was no longer available revealed that historical thinking skills were positively associated with extracting source-specific subtext and with verifying statements about the documents' contents. We conclude that historical thinking skills are related to the mastery of multiple document tasks and discuss implications for future research.