Effectiveness of History Teaching Based on Social Constructivist Learning and Development of Historical Thinking Skills

Abstract

Together with the changes experienced in the field of education around the world, it is expected that the global focus will shift from teacher-centred education to student-centred education; furthermore, attention will be paid to the needs of students to ensure that they are implementing their learning in practice throughout the entire education process. In this context, as a student-centred theory, social constructivist theory is prominent as it is essentially based on cooperative learning and displays the importance of a student’s peers in the realisation of learning. As it is compatible with the multi-cultural and multi-perspective structure of history education, considering the needs of students and history education and their daily life acquisitions, the target of developing historical thinking abilities has become more important in their academic development within social constructivist theory. In terms of the development of the historical thinking abilities of students, in addition to active learning that will attract their attention, activities must be developed that are centred on different learning methods and strategies. This research aims to show how these types of activities can be performed in the context of history education and how this can transform students’ historical thinking abilities. The research includes the education delivered by researchers in the 2016-2017 fall and spring semesters for a period of 14 weeks with 11 students on activities related to Cyprus history as well as a comparison of the pre-test and post-test results of a historical thinking skill scale that was developed by the researchers. The historical thinking skill scale developed by the researchers was used in the process of collecting the quantitative data and a semi-structured interview form was used in collecting qualitative data. At the end of the pre-test and post-test, the results were examined to determine if there were any significant differences. Additionally, based on the opinions provided by the students, it was seen that the activities had a positive impact on their historical thinking skills and the requirement for such activities in Cyprus history classes was demonstrated.