lee+y+shemilt.+a+scaffold+not+a+cage

8/11/2019 Lee+y+Shemilt.+A+scaffold+not+a+cage

1/11

13T E A C H I N G H I S T O R Y 11 3 The H istorica l A sso ciation

What is progression?

Progress has a wide range of meanings. No usage iscompulsory, but however we decide to use words, wemust ensure we know what job we want them to do.One important distinction to keep open is betweenprogress in general and progression in particular.

Pupils can make progress in any area of history, whetherit is in keeping better notes, writing better essays, orgiving better presentations to the class. But what countsas better is likely to differ considerably for differentactivities. Better notes will probably mean a higher degreeof organization and quicker retrieval. Better essays willinvolve (among other things) clearer structure and greatersensitivity to the question. Better presentations willmean stronger engagement with audiences and moreacute judgement of what must be explained.

The kind of achievement at stake impacts on how wemeasure progress. Progress in the amount of informationstudents are able to remember is often measuredquantitatively. Thus, in public examinations in historyin Year 11, ticks used to be given for items recalled,subject only to fairly weak criteria of relevance: themore ticks the better. We may be unhappy with the

simplicities involved in this, but we can hardly disputethat it involved a kind of progress.

A scaffold , not a cage:progression and progression models in history

The need to understand w ays of defining progression in history becom es ever m ore pressing in theface of a target-setting, assessm ent-driven regim e w hich requires us to m easure progress at everyturn. W e m ust defend our professional expertise in term s of m easurable outcom es. D id w e addvalue? H ave our end of Key Stage levels im proved? H ave w e m et our targets at G CSE? Superficially,being able to m easure progressin these w ays seem s sensible. H ow else are w e to m onitor theperform ance of teachers, departm ents and schools against national benchm arks? B ut of course,as w e have noted in previous editions, being able to produce sim ple, seem ingly persuasive data isnot, by itself, evidence that true progress in studentshistorical understanding has actually occurred .Reaching Level 5 does not autom atically define a students understanding of history as a disciplineand it certainly does not capture the com plexities that historical understanding entails. P roject C hata(C oncepts of H istory and Teaching A pproaches) has, over a num ber of years, attem pted to m ap

changes in studentsideas about history betw een the ages of seven and fourteen. In this article, thefirst in a series com m issioned by Teaching H istory , Peter Lee and D enis Shem ilt discuss thefundam ental flaw s in the current system of N ational C urriculum assessm ent and argue that other,research-based m odels of progression can be m ore helpful in our day-to-day planning and teaching.They do not claim any m odel to be perfect, nor indeed that w hat is m ost valuable in history thew isdom , perspective and understandingcan be captured in this w ay. They do, how ever, explorew ays in w hich m odels based on em pirical research rather than on educational expediency canbe genuinely useful in understanding how to m ove students forw ard in their historical, understandingby identifying and clarifying the m isconceptions w hich hold them back.

P et er L e e

an d D eni s S h emi l t

P et erL eei sS eni orL ect ureri nE

d ucat i onat t h eU ni versi t yof L ond onI nst i t ut eof E d ucat i on.H e

previ ousl yt au

gh t h i st or yi nsecond a

r y

mod ern

, g

rammarand com

preh e

nsi vesch ool s.D eni sS h emi l t h as

work ed at t h eU ni versi t yof L eed

sf ormoret h an2 5 years

,man

yo

f

t h em ash ead of t h eS ch ool of E d ucat i onat T ri ni t yand A l l S ai nt s.H ewasext ensi vel yi nvol ved i nt h eS ch ool sH i st or yP ro

j ect .

The relatively recent appearance of another word

progression hints that we sometimes want to talkabout something rather different from a general notionof progress. Progression was juxtaposed withaggregation to emphasize that progress in history couldbe more than an increase in the amount of informationpupils could recall: learning history was not just learningone damn thing after another. Research suggested thatchildrens ideas about history and about the past changedas they grew older and that it was possible to view thesechanges in terms of development. (Note that even movingsystematically from information on one period toinformation on another is not enough to count asprogression in this sense, even though OFSTED usagesometimes appears to assume that it is.) The researchitself grew out of teaching and was use-inspired; itarose from dissatisfaction with the aggregationistassumptions that seemed to be implicit in examinations,widespread among curriculum managers in schools andenshrined in classroom practice. So progression cameto focus on the way in which pupils ideas abouthistory and about the past develop.

If a plausible case for this kind of progression is to bemade, it has to be able to show some structure in theway childrens ideas change. Early research took a

Piagetian approach to childrens thinking, placingemphasis on the formal characteristics of historical


2/11


3/11

to speak of history as counter-intuitive. Indeed, somecommon-sense ideas make history impossible.

The common sense idea that we can only really knowwhat we witness ourselves makes history a dubiousproposition for many children. Once young childrenstart to wonder how we know about the past (rather thantaking it as given) they often assume that we cant know

anything because no-one was there in them days.5

Forpupils who believe this, history is a non-starter. Of coursemany students soon recognize that people who did witnessevents may have left reports of what they saw, and sohistory becomes possible once more. Unfortunately,testimony has its own problems: children know that wedont always tell the truth and adolescents are only tooaware that we can slant our stories of what happened forulterior motives. History is once again revealed as a highlysuspect activity. But as they begin to grasp that we can askquestions of sources that they were not intended toanswer, pupils come to see how bias is not the disasterthey thought it was and that historians can operatesuccessfully without being dependent on reports. Thelater ideas in this series are more powerful than the earlierones in that whereas the earlier ones bring history to agrinding halt, the later ideas allow it to go on. In this wayprogression is the acquisition of more powerful ideas.

What are progression models?

If key historical concepts are counter-intuitive, it is clearlyimportant to understand students preconceptions. 6 Inmapping the ideas students are likely to hold about

history as a discipline, a progression model is, of course,uncovering students prior conceptions. Understandingsuch prior conceptions is essential if our teaching is tocorrect misconceptions or to build on students ideas.Ignorance of preconceptions risks the assimilation of what we fondly think we are teaching to sets of ideasthe children already have.

Models of progression are much misunderstood, so aswell as trying to say what they are, we should perhapsemphasize what they are not. Such models derive fromresearch employing inductive categories to pick outbroad divisions of ideas in childrens responses to tasks,but they also owe much to the early days of SHP analysisof examination responses, which added considerablyto our knowledge of childrens ideas. 7

Progression models grounded in research do not, like theNational Curriculum attainment target (NCAT), simplycombine complex ideas into a single target, and then cut itinto an arbitrary number of convenient slices. Nor can theyfall back on the conceptual crudity of generic and impreciselanguage like simple, begin to and show someindependence as a substitute for identification of important shifts in understanding. Moreover, because thereis some research evidence that students ideas are decoupled

so that, for example, a students ideas about evidencemay remain the same while his or her ideas about historicalaccounts are changing quite rapidly it is a mistake to try tobundle progression in different concepts together (SeeFigure 2). 8 We must therefore construct separate modelsfor key concepts like change, evidence, accounts,cause and empathy.

Figure 2:Figure 2 :Figure 2:Figure 2 :Figure 2: D ecoupled ideas

Chata research suggests that childrens ideas do not develop at the same rate. For instance, in asample of 92 students in years seven and nine, followed over two terms, ideas about cause andempathy did not appear to develop in parallel. The same kind of decoupling was apparent in alongitudinal sample of 20 students (followed from year three to year five inclusive). Four studentsshowed no progression at all, one showed similar progression in understanding of both cause andempathy, and fifteen showed different degrees of progression in the two concepts.

We have to be careful here: we cannot say in quantitative terms what the gaps are betweencategories, let alone assume that the gaps in one concept area are equivalent to those in theother. However, the difference for ten students in the longitudinal sample was at least twocategories, and for six was three or more categories. Given that some students showed nocategory change at all, it seems likely that differences of two or more categories representsubstantial decoupling.

Complaints about atomism are misplaced here. Until we understand how students prior

conceptions relate to one another we cannot indulge in simplistic syncretism and lumpeverything together. It will be enormously valuable to be able to see ideas in their properrelationships to one another, but such holism has to be earned. Pious phrases about theindivisibility of history are not a substitute for research.

We have

history

precisely

because the

past is

neither

given nor

fixed.


4/11


5/11


level to level frequently reference generic skills andoperations rather than historical understanding. Forexample, for the historical interpretation strand, higherlevels present a hierarchy of cognitive operations thatmoves from knowledge to evaluation and judgementvia the steps of conjecture, analysis and explanation.(See Figure 3.)

The NCAT model of progression is flawed in tworespects. First, it treats such operations as evaluation asall-or-nothing accomplishments accessible to no morethan a small minority of pupils who are beyond thenormal Level 3 to Level 7 range for Key Stage 3. Inreality, many young or low attaining pupils can evaluateconflicting accounts to some degree, even thoughmany such evaluations are egocentric, e.g.

A is better because shorter and easier to readB is better because its more exciting and haspictures

Evaluations and judgements may also be impersonal andbased upon some degree of textual analysis:

A tells you more about King John; it goes intomore detailB is better because it backs up what it says aboutKing John by giving the opinions of other peopleA is best because it uses words like probably andperhaps

It follows that operations like evaluation and judgementare more accessible than the NCAT appears to suggest

and can be taught before a battery of more elementaryoperations is in place.

The NCAT model of progression is flawed in a secondand more critical respect, namely its failure toconsider how pupils make sense of what they learnand are asked to do. Evaluations of contraryinterpretations of the past depend not only uponcertain operational competences of a generic naturebut also upon the relationship that pupils conceivesuch accounts as having to the real past. For example,if they think that accounts should present true picturesof the past and believe it possible for the past to haveits photograph taken, pupils will equate differences ininterpretation with differences in accuracy of representation. Inconsequence, they will hunt for signs of bias (seenas doctoring of photographs of the past) andintimations of accuracy in the accounts analysed,often finding plausible signs in the backgrounds of authors and in the texts themselves. Pupils genericskills of analysis and explanation, evaluation andjudgement may be exceptional but, if they construe

accounts in this way, what is written will remainvery limited.

Models of progression used to inform teaching andassessment should look nothing like the NCAT. Incontrast to this authorized version, they should:

a) be developmental rather than, or as well as,formally hierarchical;

b) relate to pupils ideas and, in particular, to theways in which they make sense of what they aretaught as well as to what they can do;

c) progress beyond the commonsense of the street

and the media to embrace that which is counter-intuitive and particular to the discipline.

Figure 3:Figure 3 :Figure 3:Figure 3 :Figure 3: The N C AT m odel of progression for historical interpretation

It is at the Level 4 Level 5 interface that this model of progression ceases to be defensible.The progression steps hereon form a neat logical hierarchy of cognitive operations whenwhat is required is a developmental model of history-specific understanding.

Know that some events, people and changes have been interpreted in differentways and suggest possible reasons for this. (Level 5)

The key operation here is that of conjecture, the ability to suggest possible reasons as towhy non-fictional accounts sometimes conflict. The next step involves the ability to movefrom possible to probable reasons:

Describe, and begin to analyse, why there are different historical interpretations ofevents, people and changes. (Level 6)

Analysis of texts is necessary before pupils are able to move beyond conjecture but this

depends upon progression in learning no more than does the filling of a kettle with waterbefore plugging it in and switching it on! The priority afforded to one operation over theother is logical not developmental .

The sheep

move

through the

terrain in

more or

less regular

ways, but a

sheepdog

can change

their route.


6/11

Research based models of progression

The NCAT is not the only kid on the block. Alternativemodels of progression may be derived from the nowconsiderable body of constructivist research conductedin the U.K. and overseas over the past 25 to 30 years. Itmust be admitted, however, that research-based modelsof progression are neither as comprehensive nor as

utilitarian as the NCAT.

It is only fair to acknowledge the revolution inassessment signified by the NCAT and associatedprocedures for statutory teacher assessment at the

end of Key Stage 3. For decades, teachers andexaminers have struggled to ensure the reliabilityand validity of assessments. One revolutionarymasterstroke was to dispense with rules of evidencefor end of key stage assessments. The authors haveseen work copied from the board and written bypeer tutors being used for this purpose and, in theabsence of any rules of evidence, such material is

(absurdly) as admissible as formal test andexamination papers. Since any material producedunder any conditions may be best-fit matchedagainst the NCAT nothing is deemed to be unreliableand assessments become error free.

Figure 4 :Figure 4:Figure 4 :Figure 4:Figure 4: N C AT versus research based m odels of progression

Robust research-based models of progression may be produced for suchsecond-order concepts as evidence, accounts, change, cause and empathy,

and, more tentatively, of the big picture of the past. But, unlike the NCAT,research-based models cannot encompass the totality of knowledge, skillsand understanding required for Key Stage 3. They cannot accommodateelements like communication of knowledge and understanding.

Research suggests that pupils understanding of substantive history may beenhanced or limited by their grasp of second-order concepts. It is notpossible, however, to offer a single research-based model that applies tothe subject as a whole because ideas about second-order concepts do not

develop in parallel. In contrast, the NCAT is holistic and, in this respect atleast, goes far beyond anything currently known.

Research-based models can be levelled in ways that correspond with currentpractice, but do not naturally break down into nine or any other convenientnumber of levels. Indeed, for research-based models there is an ineluctabletrade-off between complexity and robustness: the greater the number oflevels, the less robust the model becomes. The integrity of the NCAT, on theother hand, cannot be degraded by anything whatever. The nine-level versionis as valid as any other how many levels would you like?

A research-based model sets levels in an order. But we cannot saywhether the gaps between levels are equal, or how wide they are. Thescale offered by the NCAT presumes that the intervals are equal, anotherillegitimate pretension to sophistication. For the average pupil, each gapbetween each pair of NCAT levels takes exactly two years to cross, neithermore nor less. If the NCAT scale really were allied with error-freeassessments, it would enable precise targets to be set and value-addedcalculations to be made. Needless to say, research-based models cannotbe used for such purposes.


7/11


Even more revolutionary are the ways in which issuesof validity are resolved. The NCAT goes some waytowards eliminating this problem by specifying multi-strand descriptors with indeterminate boundaries.This allows for interminable debate about which of many possible fits is in fact the best. Better still,the whole concept of best fit actually enablesassessment to take place whether or not the data

actually fit the performance criteria. Imagine a dartsmatch in which three darts miss the board but hit theceiling, the barmaid and the dog in the corner. Withthe aid of a tape-measure each dart can be best-fittedto a particular cell in the board; the dart in the ceiling,for example, might best-fit to double-twenty! Inlike manner, it is possible for assessment data to bebest-fitted to a level descriptor that they fail to matchon the grounds that the mismatch with other levels iseven greater. Thus it is that issues of validity aresidestepped.

Despite the fact that the NCAT is an unrivalled tool forassessment at the end of Key Stage 3, research-basedmodels of progression may claim to be superior in tworespects. First, they connect more closely with pupilsideas, errors and misconceptions. Second, they aredevelopmental, highlighting the watersheds (or crisispoints) in learning that teachers must plan to negotiateand which assessments should seek to register. Theseadvantages are evident in the six-level model of progression in ideas about evidence given in Figure 5.

What have models of progression

ever done for me?Ten years ago Paul Black wrote, Anyone planning teachinghas to have some way to decide in what order pupilsthinking should be encouraged to develop it isinconceivable that a subjects teaching be planned withoutsome model of progression as a basis. 13 We are now moredisposed to conceive the inconceivable because, like manyother bright ideas for filling the waking hours of servingteachers, implementation of progression models canbecome an obituary-enhancing activity with noperceptible impact on what pupils actually learn. This doesnot mean that Paul Black is wrong, but rather that weneed to think carefully about what might count asappropriate models and how they may be used.Progression models must be capable of being applied in theways and to the extent that individual teachers find useful. Such useswill vary greatly from classroom to classroom but mightextend to some or all of the following:

Planning within and across key stages.The identification, evaluation and remediationof common misconceptions.Recording and analysis of attainment and progressover the long term.

Options with respect to these categories of use will beexamined in turn.

Models of progressionand curriculum planning

Research-based models of progression may be used tocalibrate the outcomes of National Curriculum Historywith GCSE specifications and assessment objectives. Modelsthat are applicable to the whole of the secondary age-phase may serve to mitigate the dislocations attaching to

shifts from mandatory to elective courses of study, andfrom compulsory to post-compulsory age-phases.

Models may also be used to facilitate the planning of progression both within a scheme of work and acrossunits of work. For instance, historical enquiry and sourcework figure in several of the units in the QCA modelscheme of work, but the manner in which historicalenquiry is revisited appears to be ad hoc and to betraylittle sense of direction or purpose. Historical enquiryseems to have been mapped onto a set of units rather thanto progress through them in any systematic fashion. This isnot to suggest that historical enquiry and evidenceconcepts be addressed in all or most units, but theseconcepts should be regularly revisited and relevant unitobjectives should progress from each other in a rationaland calculated fashion. Research-based models of progression may provide empirically grounded compassbearings and sets of way markers for this purpose.

Although such models can be enormously valuable incurriculum planning, we must avoid falling into adangerous trap. We cannot treat models of progressionas if they set out a list of ideas that must be taught oneafter the other. The evidence model given in Figure 5

suggests ways in which we might expect students ideasto develop. It enables us to recognize realachievements, even when the new understandingachieved remains a misconception. It helps prepare usto recognize how students may assimilate what wethink we are teaching to their existing priorconceptions. But it does not mean that we should setout to teach students an inadequate idea simply becauseit seems to be the next one on the list.

The development of pupils ideas about the reliabilityof sources of evidence may serve as an example of someimportant conceptual shifts that should informplanning. (Reliability is used as an example becausemost teachers address it at KS3, not because it is the mostimportant idea at stake.)

(a) The notion of reliability means little to pupilsuntil they distinguish between information about the past(Level 2 in Figure 5) and testimony from the past (Level3). Pupils who are still at Level 2 assimilate thedistinction reliable v unreliable to that of correct vincorrect as applied to information. This assimilationof new jargon to old knowledge reinforces rather thanchallenges the latter. It is only when pupils treat

sources as testimony about the past from putativeeyewitnesses to the events reported that they can

Models of

progression

should go

beyond the

commonsense

of the street

and the

media to

embrace the

counter-

intuitive.


8/11


understand the notion of reliability as part of a methodology for testing testimony .

(b) Some ways of evaluating the reliability of source-based data are likely to be understood long before otherways will make sense to pupils. Pupils thinking in Level3 terms (see Figure 5) are usually able to understand that(i) some witnesses are more credible than others, e.g.they are disposed to trust clerics more readily than lawyers(the ad hominemtest); and (ii) that first-hand reports shouldbe accepted before hearsay (the witness test). Althoughsuch ideas are seldom adequate for their purpose, theyrepresent real achievements for pupils for whom thequestion, How do we know? had hitherto beenmeaningless or unanswerable.

(c) A shift to Level 4 ways of thinking involves thecoordination of several new ideas (see Figure 5). Mostsignificant is the realization that the several statementswithin a source (made by an eyewitness) can be more orless reliable and that the all-or-nothing approach totestimony characteristic of Level 3 is not the optimummeans of constructing a true (sic) report about the past.Because it is hard to apply the ad hominemand witness teststo fractions of testimony, they tend to reinforce the all-or-nothing approach. If students thinking like thisencounter new reliability tests, such as access toinformation and author intent, they will have tools tomove them on. But, as experience has shown only toowell over the past decades of source work, studentsalready have an everyday concept of bias and may take itto mean nothing more than the reason why someone waslying. In consequence, the new tool may be assimilated

to prior conceptions and become just a new variant of thead hominem test. If bias is taught as a complex phenomenonthat extends beyond partisanship to include interest inits widest sense, and if identification of bias is also usedto demonstrate the reliability of particular statements aswell as the converse, students may avoid this kind of assimilation. (E.g. statements about the treatment of wounded Zulus after the Battle of Rourkes Drift gaincredibility because they were made by people with aninterest in silence, evasion and self-exculpation.) Aboveall, the move from considering the reliability of testimonyon an all-or-nothing to a statement-by-statement basisrequires teaching pupils to cross reference statementscontained in independent and unrelated sources.

(d) The major shift at Level 5 is from the common-senseidea that our knowledge about the past depends onwitnesses reports, to an understanding that we can makevalid statements without accepting the literal truth of reports in whole or in part. The key ideas for studentshere are first, that the reliability of sources or theircomponent statements is not absolute but depends onthe questions that we wish to answer; and second, thatit makes no sense to question the reliability of somesources. Some sources are completely mute until they

are interrogated. A midden heap in a Neolithicsettlement, for example, is a relic from the past that

reports nothing. The evidence it yields is conditionalupon the questions posed, and will differ against suchquestions as How nutritious was the diet of thesepeople? How large was the settlement? and Wasinhabitation of the site continuous or seasonal? It makessense to query the authenticity of the source and thevalidity of the conclusions derived from evidence, butit does not make sense to challenge its reliability. Thismay seem to be an easy thing to teach but it is not.Pupils assimilate midden heaps, musket balls and castlewalls into the ranks of eyewitnesses that are thought totell, or show, it as it was. It is only when they understandthat evidence taken from both relics and reports variesin both kind and quality according to the questionsposed that pupils realise that relics say nothing in andof themselves. Reports are more difficult to handleprecisely because they do say something about whathappened in the past. But students asked about thereliability of school reports in answering questions abouttheir school work, their relations with teachers, and theirteachers ideas about standards of work and behaviour,may be persuaded that what we can say on the basis of any particular record of the past will vary with thequestions we pose. (Indeed the very distinctionbetween relic and record sources depends in part on thequestions posed: the Bayeux Tapestry may serve as arecord of the Battle of Hastings for some purposes and asa relic artefact for others).

(e) At Level 6 a key idea is that we need to reconstructthe meanings that attach to sources in the contexts inwhich they were produced and used. This can be a verysophisticated process. For example near contemporary

accounts of the Battle of Hastings are replete with echoesof classical epics and Dark Age romances. It is temptingto dismiss such allusions as literary artifice but there isgood reason to believe that noble protagonistsconsciously mimicked episodes from tales about Aeneas,Roland, Oliver and so on. Indeed, at the onset of battle,Taillefer rode before the Norman lines singing lines fromthe chanson de geste that invited comparison between thecoming fight and the Battle of Roncesvalles. The extentto which art embellished life and life imitated art maybe difficult to determine, but it is not always so tricky.When taken in conjunction with other evidence, thefact that blinding was an established punishment foroath-breaking may lead us to question near contemporaryreports that, at a critical point in the battle, Harold wasstruck in the eye by a Norman arrow.

It should be apparent that the model of progression forevidence must not be applied to the history curriculumin any rigid or mechanistic sense. There is no suggestionthat levels are fixed by age or even that teaching shouldfollow an invariant sequence. What is argued is, first, thatwe should plan to progress pupils understanding of suchsecond-order concepts as evidence across units of workand key stages; second, that it is important to take account

of how pupils make sense of what they are taught ratherthan to plan for progression solely in terms of some notional

Progression

models

must be

capable of

being

applied in

the ways

and to the

extent that

individual

teachers

find useful.


9/11

Figure 5 :Figure 5:Figure 5 :Figure 5:Figure 5: P rogression in ideas about evidence

Pictures of the pastThe past is viewed as though it were the present, and students treat potential evidence as if itoffers direct access to the past. Questions about the basis of statements about the past donot arise. Stories are just stories.

InformationThe past is treated as fixed and known by some authority; students treat potential evidenceas information. Given statements to test against evidence, students match information orcount sources to solve the problem. Questions arise about whether the information offeredis correct or incorrect, but no methodology is attributed to history for answering suchquestions beyond an appeal to books, diaries or what is dug up. These, although sometimesseen as being connected with the past, provide transparent information that is either corrector incorrect.

Testimony The past is reported to us by people living at the time. Like eyewitnesses today, they do thiseither well or badly. Questions as to how we know about the past are regarded as sensible:students begin to understand that history has a methodology for testing statements aboutthe past. Conflicts in potential evidence are thought appropriately settled by deciding whichreport is best. Notions of bias, exaggeration and loss of information in transmissionsupplement the simple dichotomy between truth-telling and lies. Reports are often treatedas if the authors are more or less direct eyewitnesses: the more direct, the better.

Scissors and PasteThe past can be probed even when no individual reporter has told us truthfully or accuratelywhat happened. We can put together a version by picking out the true statements fromdifferent reports and putting them together. In one students words: You take the true bitsout of this one, and the best bits out of that one, and when youve got it up, youve got apicture. Notions of bias or lies are supplemented by questions about whether the reporteris in a position to know.

Evidence in isolation

Statements about the past can be inferred from sources of evidence. We can ask questionsof sources that they were not designed to answer, so that evidence will bear questions forwhich it could not be testimony. Many things may serve as evidence that do not reportanything. (Nineteenth Century rail timetables were not constructed for the benefit ofhistorians.) This means that historians may work out historical facts even if no testimonysurvives. Evidence may be defective without questions of bias or lies. Reliability is not afixed property of a source, and the weight we can rest on any piece of evidence depends onwhat questions we ask of it.

Evidence in context

A source only yields evidence when it is understood in its historical context: we must knowwhat a source meant to those by and for whom it was produced. This involves thesuspension of certain lines of questioning and a provisional acceptance of much historicalwork as established fact (a known context). We cannot question everything at once.Contexts vary across time and place and thus a sense of period is important.


10/11


hierarchy of cognitive operations (as with the NCAT);and third, that research-based models of progression canprove useful in this connection.

Models of progressionand day-to-day monitoring

The previous discussion has already emphasized theimportance of addressing students prior conceptions.Many of the misconceptions that pupils exhibit derivefrom ways of thinking described in research-based modelsof progression. For example, a pupil who justifies herfailure to refer to certain sources on the grounds that theyonly tell you things that you already know because theinformation they contain is about the same thing as thatin another source clearly fails to see information aboutthe past as in any way problematic (Level 1: Pictures of the Past). Attempts to teach her why cross-referencing isimportant are unlikely to be fruitful because she has yet toask the question, How do we know about the past? orto accept that some information about it can be false. Forher, it would be an advance were she to understand theimportance of counting sources to resolve discrepanciesin bodies of information.

Reference to research-based models of progression canthus be useful in enabling us to see where some commonmisconceptions might come from and in suggesting thelevel at which attempts at remediation may be pitched.More important though is the fact that such modelsrepresent progression in understanding as the gradualtransformation of misconceptions rather than as thegradual accumulation of correct ideas. Only on rareoccasions can we remedy fundamental misconceptions;most of the time success is limited to the slowtransmutation of less into more useful and sophisticatedmisconceptions.

Models of progression and theassessment of learning

This is territory claimed by the NCAT for statutoryteacher assessment and reporting at the end of Key Stage

3, but a surprising number of schools use the NCAT fornon-statutory purposes including:

The routine marking of internal assessments and,in a few extreme cases, of homework.Reports to parents in years 7 and 8.Target-setting for pupils on an annual, term orhalf-term basis.Departmental evaluation and target setting

We should not let the dubious claims of the NCATmodel seduce us into trying to use research-basedprogression models in these ways. But progression

models can legitimately be used in assessment tasks.Space limits us to two examples.

1. We can provide notes in pupil records that Boris seemsto have made a secure transition to, say, Level 4understanding of evidence but his big picture overviewsof the past remain at Level 2, his understanding of causedoes not seem to fit the normative model and so on.These have the status of descriptive notes, not scores ormeasures of whatever kind.

2. We can calculate cohort progress against one or moremodels over a year or a key stage. Progress may be validlyrepresented as the difference between two histograms,medians or modes (but because we do not know thatthe intervals between levels are equal, it may only berepresented in terms of mean gain scores the differencebetween two average levels if the deputy head-teachersuffers from methodological thought disorder). Underno circumstances is it valid to report levels to parents asmeasures of individual attainment or progress, to setlevels as targets for individual pupils or colleagues, or touse levels as a basis for grade predictions or value-addedcalculations.

Research-based progression models:the dark side

Models of progression are vulnerable to abuse of manykinds and it is important that their limitations beunderstood. The first limitation pertains to their rangeof convenience. Most of history, and most of what is of most value in the study of the past, cannot be capturedby models of progression. Indeed, it is impossible to

legislate for the wisdom, perspective and understandingthat can come from historical study since this is particularto the knowledge, creativity and charisma of individualteachers. This is not to devalue the significance of theconcepts and understanding that can be systematicallycaptured in models over the medium and long term.Wisdom and insight need not preclude intellectualrigour. Models of progression can supply a scaffold forthe teaching and learning of history, but, if ill-used, thisscaffold can become a cage.

The second limitation derives from the fact thatresearch-based models of progression are normative notuniversal. There are many roads to Rome and some pupilsprefer to head for Geneva. Normative models workwell for groups of pupils but the progress of some pupilsmay be best described in terms of the ways in whichthey depart from a standard model.

The third and final limitation relates to the fact thatresearch-based models have low resolution and do nomore than pick out the main features of progression overthe long term. For units of work we need high-resolutionmodels that sequence achievable objectives over a numberof lessons. We cannot simply deduce high-resolution

models from research-based models, but the formershould be informed by and compatible with the latter.

There are

many roads

to Rome and

some pupils

prefer to

head for

Geneva.


11/11

Current research-based progression models are necessarilyprovisional, but they are grounded in empiricalinvestigation, not conjured from the air. A growingbody of research, increasingly international, is becomingavailable to test them. They offer a picture of thedevelopment of students prior conceptions, and a basisfor thinking about the conceptual tools students needto make sense of the past. Most important of all, they

offer teachers a starting point for exploring their ownstudents ideas. Marking need never be the same again.

REFERENCES1. Exam ples include C harlton, K (1952), C om prehension of H istorical Term s ,

unpublished B .Ed. thesis, U niversity of Glasgow ; C oltham , J. (1960) Junior School C hildrens understanding of H istorical Term s , unpublished PhD .thesis, U niversity of M anchester.

2. N ote that outside the U K (especially in Italy) valuable w ork influenced byPiaget has been done over tw o decades on childrens ideas about politicaland econom ic life. See, for exam ple, B erti, A .E. and B om bi, A .S. (1988) TheChilds C onstruction of Econom ics , C am bridge: Cam bridge U niversity Press;Berti, A.E. (1994) Childrens understanding of the concept of the state, inCognitive and Instructional Processes in H istory and the Social Sciences , M .Carretero and J.F. Voss (eds), N ew Jersey: Erlbaum . N eglect of childrens

preconceptions appears to be a serious problem in citizenship education.3. W e do not subscribe to the apparatus of Piagetian stages, and w ould w ant

to em phasize distinctive characteristics of historical thinking, but w e alsothink that sim plistic criticism of Piaget (for exam ple that he om itted socialaspects of developm ent) has persuaded too m any com m entators in historyeducation to ignore m ore interesting elem ents of his theories, like hisconcepts of centrationor field. The issue is m ore com plex than rejection,let alone disproof, of Piaget.

4. This has not been explicitly discussed in published papers from Project Chata(C oncepts of History and Teaching Approaches at Key Stages 2 and 3), but

see Lee, P.J. and Ashby, R. (2000) Progression in historical understandingam ong students ages 7-14, in Know ing, Teaching and Learning H istory , P.N .Stearns, P. Seixas and S. W ineburg (eds), N ew York: N ew York U niversityPress; and Lee, P.J. and Ashby, R. (2001) Em pathy, perspective taking andrational understanding, in H istorical Em pathy and Perspective Taking in the Social Studies , O .L. D avis Jr., S. Foster and E. Yaeger (eds), Boulder:Row m an and Littlefield. Keith B artons work in the U S seem s to point in thesam e direction Barton, K . (1996) N arrative sim plifications in elem entarystudentshistorical thinking, in Advances in R esearch on Teaching Vol. 6:Teaching and Learning H istory , J. B rophy (ed.), G reenw ich: JA I Press.

5. Project C hata response.6. U nderstanding preconceptions is the first of the three key principles

derived from 50 years of research on hum an learning picked out by theU S N ational Research C ouncils report H ow People Learn : B rain, M ind,Experience and S chool , J.D B ransford, A . L. B row n and R .R . C ocking (eds)(19 99 ) W ashington D C : N ational Academ y Press.

7. H enry M acintosh and John H am er produced C SE exam inersreports fromthe Southern R egional B oard giving teachers feedback on a scale thatsham es current reports.

8. Lee, P.J. and A shby, R . (2000) op. cit.9. C ercadillo, L., (20 01) Significance in history, studentsideas in England

and S pain, in A .K . D ickinson, P. G ordon and P.J. Lee (eds), Raising S tandards in H istory Education , International Review of H istory Education Volum e 3 ,London: W oburn Press.

10. Talk of linear progressionis also m isleading if this im plies that analysis ofstudentsideas about a particular concept com m its researchers to thenotion that learning in that concept follow s a linear path. B ut it is seldomclear w hat the idea of linear progressionactually m eans to those w ho useit. See, for exam ple, E. Verm eulen (2000) W hat is progress in history,Teaching H istory 98, D efining Prog ression Edition .

11. Lee, P.J. and A shby, R . (2000) op. cit .12. The w ork of Isabel B arca and M arilia G ago in Portugal, Lis C ercadillo in

Spain, and Project CH IN (C hildrens Ideas about Narrative: U nderstandingH istorical Accounts) in Taiw an suggest that students in those countriesem ploy surprisingly sim ilar ideas to those of U K students. Explorations ofstudentsideas by K eith B arton and Alan M cC ully in the U SA and N orthernIreland also reveal som e m arked sim ilarities. Caution is obviously required,but such unexpected sim ilarities m erit further exploration.

13. Black, P.J. (19 93) The shifting scenery of the N ational Curriculum , in O H earand W hite, J.(eds) Assessing the N ational Curriculum , London: Paul Chapm an.

Models of

progression

can supply a

scaffold ...

but, if

ill-used,

this scaffold

can become

a cage.

lee+y+shemilt.+a+scaffold+not+a+cage

Documents