Enhancing Historical Reasoning: A Strategy Including Formative Assessment with Systematic Continuous Feedback

Abstract

Learning History promotes students’ reasoning. According to Van Drie & Van Boxtel (2008), historical reasoning involves six elements: substantive concepts, metaconcepts, asking historical questions, using sources, contextualization, and argumentation. Although there are didactic strategies that promote historical reasoning, these do not include systematic continuous feedback using rubrics, which can be useful both in assessing and promoting students’ progress and progression of ideas on metaconcepts. This study described the development of the six historical reasoning elements in a strategy that included formative assessment for K8 students. A case study was carried out in Mexico City: four teams of three students were formed according to their knowledge of history, with a single History teacher providing continuous systematic feedback on metaconcepts by using graded rubrics. Results showed that the six historical reasoning elements were developed in different ways and suggested possible methods for use in future didactics.