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Promoting real‐world engagement with history concepts beyond the secondary school classroom: teaching for transformative experience and conceptual change
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Promoting real‐world engagement with history concepts beyond the secondary school classroom: teaching for transformative experience and conceptual change
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Running Head: REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS i Promoting Real-World Engagement with History Concepts Beyond the Secondary School Classroom: Teaching for Transformative Experience and Conceptual Change Marc David Alongi A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF EDUCATION August 12, 2014 Copyright 2014 Marc David Alongi REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS ii ii ABSTRACT Promoting Real-World Engagement of History Concepts Beyond the Secondary Classroom: Teaching for Transformative Experience and Conceptual Change by Marc Alongi Dr. Gale Sinatra, Examination Committee, Chair Professor of Educational Psychology Grounded in the traditions of John Dewey and other progressives, newer empirical studies (Broughton, Sinatra, & Nussbaum, 2011; Heddy & Sinatra, 2013; Pugh, 2004, 2011; Pugh, Linnenbrink-Garcia, Koskey, Stewart, & Manzey, 2010b) have sought to better understand the psychological underpinnings and educational practices that promote conceptual change and student engagement beyond the classroom. Engagement with history concepts beyond the classroom is a critical goal for education in democratic societies, allowing individuals to apply historical reasoning to contemporary situations, forming a foundation to our moral decision-making (Dewey, 1916; Horton & Freire, 1990; Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007). However, a primary concern with the engagement and transfer of historical thinking beyond the classroom is the degree to which learners are able to achieve conceptual change, i.e., accommodate new concepts into one’s existing schema (Pugh, 2011). Because a priori judgments are formed from one’s experience in the world, conceptual change and application from a school setting to the real world may necessarily involve the support of a teacher. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS iii iii Based on the Teaching for Transformative Experience in Science (TTES) intervention (Heddy & Sinatra, 2013; Pugh et al., 2010b), this study was designed to explore the efficacy of the new Teaching for Transformative Experience in History (TTEH) model, which aims to support students’ application of history concepts, facilitation and awareness of their own conceptual change, and the development of experiential value believed to contribute to engagement and conceptual change. Taking place in two high and one middle schools (n=88), I found that the TTEH model showed some evidence that it promotes engagement with history concepts beyond the classroom, as well as predicting increased interest emotions for history concepts. The model demonstrated potential for further research on conceptual change and application of history concepts for both secondary and undergraduate classrooms. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS iv iv DEDICATION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation is dedicated to all of my teachers, in school and out, who have taught me to look at the world, and myself, with new eyes. It is not possible to mention each one, but I would be remiss to not include Professor Hal Roth, who not only challenged me to apply theory to my own experience, but also modeled the importance of praxis, despite the institutional challenges that require otherwise. This work is also dedicated to my loving parents and Nana, who were my first teachers and will continue to guide me with wisdom as I grow. Their support has provided both a model to which I can only aspire, and countless opportunities that have allowed me to continue learning throughout my life. Of course, this dissertation study would not have been possible without Dr. Sinatra, who has guided me as an academician, helping me pursue my passions using the tools and rigor of scientific practice. It is has been a privilege and an honor to work with Dr. Sinatra as I attempt to build upon the large body of research that she has conducted. I would also like to acknowledge, Dr. Heddy for his self-less support, guidance and collaboration that brought inspiration and technical wherewithal to this process, as well as a spirit of inquiry that I hope to build upon down the road ahead. My gratitude extends further to my committee members, Dr. Seli and Dr. Goldfarb, for their time and additional contributions to improving the quality of this research. This study would not have been possible if not for the generous support of Isabel Morales, Sarah Cooper and Kathleen Tunderman, without whom many lessons from this study would not have been learned. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS v v Finally, I’d like to dedicate this continued work to Sequoyah School and all of my many colleagues and students who have supported and inspired me to do this important work. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS vi vi Table of Contents Abstract …………………………………………………………….…………………………...ii Dedication and Acknowledgements ………………………………………..……………………iv List of Tables ………………………………………………………………………………...…viii List of Figures ………………………………………….…………………………….………….ix Chapter One: Introduction…………………………………………………………………….…. 1 Overview & Conceptual Framework ..…………………………………….……………..3 Working Definition of Transformative Experience ……………………………………...4 Working Definition of Conceptual Change……………………………………………....5 Statement of the Problem……….………………………………………..…………….…6 Purpose of the Study……….…………………………………………….…………….…6 Chapter Two: Literature Review………………….……….……….……………………………10 Teaching and Learning History…………………………………….…….….………..…10 Transformative Experience as an Integrative Construct…….….……….…………….…16 Conceptual Change……………………………………….……………………….….….20 Interest…………………………………………………......……….……..…....…..……26 Emotions…………………………………………………..………….…….………...… 28 Summary…………………………………………………….……….…....……….…… 31 Chapter Three: Methodology………………………………….………..…….………………… 33 Participants and Setting…………….…………………………………………………… 33 Design and Materials……………….………….….….…………………………....…… 36 Procedures…………………………………………………………………….………… 42 Analysis……………….………….…………….…………….…………………………. 47 Chapter Four: Results ……………………………………………………………………..……. 50 Data Screening and Descriptive Statistics ….………….…….…………….….……….. 50 Findings for All Participants .…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….. 51 University High Findings .…….…….…….….….…….…….…….…….…….…..…… 53 Huntington Prep Findings .…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…. 64 Diego Rivera Findings .…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….. 71 Summary .…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….… 79 REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS vii vii Chapter Five: Discussion .…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…… 81 Summary of the Findings .…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….……..…….… 81 Limitations .…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….….….…… 85 Implications for Assessment and Instruction ……..…….…….…….…….…...….…… 87 Implications for Future Research .…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….……... 91 Conclusion .…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….. 94 References……………………………………………………………………………………..... 96 Appendices A-E…………………………………………………………….…………………. 103 REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS viii viii List of Tables Table 1: Schedule of instrument administration and instructional activities Table 2: Means and Standard Deviations By School and Condition Pre to Post for TE, Conceptual Change (CC) and Situational and Individual Interest Surveys (SIS, IIS) (N=88). REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS ix ix List of Figures Figure 1: Design and Materials 36 REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 1 1 CHAPTER ONE OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY “What fascinates me in reading good books is to find the moment in which the book makes it possible for me or helps me to better my understanding of reality, of concreteness. In other words, for me the reading of books is important to the extent that the books give me a certain theoretical instrument with which I can make the reality more clear vis-à-vis myself, you see. This is the relationship that I try to establish between reading words and reading the world.” ~ Paolo Freiri (Horton & Freire, 1990, p. 31) Introduction These words by renowned Brazilian educator, Paolo Freiri, echo centuries of philosophers who brought forth theories of learning that recognize the value of experience. Ancient Greek philosophers Protagoras, Alcmaeon and Democritus argued for an “experience centered” view, opposing Plato who held a “mind centered” view (Reynolds, Sinatra, & Jetton, 1996). In the middle stood Aristotle, bridging the two views, suggesting that through a series of perceptions the mind can recognize, organize, and arrive at higher order concepts (Reynolds et al., 1996). Freiri’s words speak not only to the importance of experience in learning in general, but to the problem of learning within social, political, and economic systems that are laden with bias and ideology. Freiri called for a solution to a “banking system” of education in which the teacher maintains the “attitudes and practices, which mirror oppressive society as a whole (Freire, 2000, REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 2 2 p. 73).” This solution involves experience, a reading of the world, to develop a critical consciousness. Almost a century earlier John Dewey expressed a similar sentiment regarding the learning of history and geography in Democracy and Education (Dewey, 1916). With every increase of ability to place our own doings in their time and space connections, our doings gain in significant content. We realize that we are citizens of no mean city in discovering the scene in space of which we are denizens, and the continuous manifestation of endeavor in time of which we are heirs and continuers. Thus our ordinary daily experiences cease to be things of the moment and gain enduring substance (Dewey, 1916, p. 208). Here engagement with the content of history in the daily experience of the learner provides “enduring substance” or value for the learner. The conversation about knowledge acquisition, and in the case of this study, the learning of history, cannot neglect a socio-cultural perspective. From childhood, every individual is exposed to a myriad of beliefs and styles of historical thinking, and the schoolhouse is only one of many influences. For example, a 2004 Gallup Youth Survey, (n = 439) (Gallup, 2005) asked teens ages thirteen to seventeen to compare their social and political views with those of their parents. Twenty-one percent say they are “more liberal” than their parents and seven percent say they are “more conservative.” Seventy-one percent say their social and political ideology is about the same as their parents. There is no guarantee that the child growing up in these contexts will develop the liberal and civic intelligence necessary for navigating the rocky terrain of opinions, ideologies and dogmas based in interpretations of history that can be found in the daily experience of each individual. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 3 3 Though this is just one illustration of socio-cultural learning, our social learning begins with the process of knowledge acquisition with the inheritance of ideas, or biases, from a caregiver as much as a teacher, in addition to one’s cultural milieu. Therefore, we launch into a conversation about the learning of history, not conceiving of individual learners as blank slates, but minds full of historical and social ideas, ways of perceiving and interacting with the world, and conceptions of the process of learning. Dewey (1938) said this clearly when presenting his criteria of experience that guide the process and habits of the learner, “The basic characteristic of habit is that every experience enacted and undergone modifies the one who acts and undergoes...It covers the formation of attitudes, attitudes that are emotional and intellectual; it covers our basic sensitivities and ways of meeting and responding to all the conditions which we meet in living” (Dewey, 1938, p. 35). The socio-cultural context also plays a role in forming psychological habits, imprinted on the neural pathways of the brain, automating thought patterns to the extent that outer layers of the cerebral cortex responsible for complex thinking are no longer used, while habitual thought moves deeper into the wiring of the brain (Neal, Wood, & Quinn, 2006). From this perspective, it is necessary to conceive of learning to interface with habitual thought patterns in daily experience. Therefore, experiencing new learning in quotidian contexts necessarily involves automated behavioral and cognitive functions. This study was designed to understand the workings of student engagement with historical thinking beyond the history classroom, and the teacher facilitation that guides the application and experiential integration of historical ideas. Overview and Conceptual Framework Historical consciousness literature provides a useful framework that presents a backdrop for understanding how a learner may engage with history concepts from one’s classroom, or academic setting, to one’s own personal experience. Seixas (2004) suggests that one principle of REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 4 4 historical consciousness is that there is a relationship between academic and popular histories that coexist within cultures (Seixas, 2004). This study sought to explore this phenomenon by testing the effects of an experience-oriented pedagogical strategy designed to promote Transformative Experience, that is, behavioral, cognitive and affective engagement with classroom concepts beyond the classroom. Overall, this quasi-experimental study was an experience-oriented pedagogical intervention that draws from research on cognitive and affective dimensions of learning. Working Definition of Transformative Experience The integrative construct, Transformative Experience (TE), was developed by Pugh (2002) based largely on the work of John Dewey. Pugh (2011) defines TE as: …a learning episode in which a student acts on the subject matter by using it in everyday experience to more fully perceive some aspect of the world and finds meaning in doing so. This definition highlights three characteristics that I find important to the Deweyan theory of experience described previously: (a) acting on an idea (i.e., engaging with concepts as ideas), (b) experiencing an expansion of perception, and (c) developing a value for the content and the experience it affords (Pugh, 2011, p. 111). The three components of TE are grounded in the literature of educational psychology. Those constructs are: motivated use, including elements of transfer, expansion of perception, and experiential value (Pugh, 2011). The first component, motivated use, includes any instance during which an individual, teacher or student, applied the concept to experiences outside the history class. In other words, it is a form of engagement through application of subject content and possibly a form of transfer. This dimension focuses on the effort of the individual to use his or her ideas outside of the REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 5 5 history classroom, regardless of the individual’s clarity or sophistication of the concept. Other synonyms may be helpful to more accurately capture the nature of the motivation. These synonyms include: apply, notice, and see. Therefore, motivated use is the dimension of TE that observes specific actions taken by the student using conceptual learning from the classroom. The second component, expansion of perception, is defined as the cognitive dimension of engagement through which an individual is able to use his or her knowledge in a new way (Pugh, 2011). Expansion of perception can also be understood in terms of Piaget’s (1954) assimilation and accommodation, as the result of the individual connecting new ideas and information into an existing schema or pattern of understanding. Furthermore, those connections are between new academic knowledge and conceptual frameworks and existing real-world experiences and memories that necessarily involve socially-embed emotional cognitive processes (Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007; Piaget, 1954). In other words, our learning, the attempt to grapple with new ideas in our lives, involves emotional thought that is informed by the social contexts in which we live, ultimately engaging one’s human capacity for moral decision making. The third component of TE is experiential value, which Pugh (2011) defines as the “valuing of content for the experience it provides” (Pugh, 2011, p. 113). This type of value for a learning task exists at the intersection of utility value and intrinsic value (Pugh, 2011; Wigfield & Eccles, 1992). In other words, being able to apply conceptual knowledge to one’s own experiences is not only useful, but provides a richer, more meaningful experience through which the individual can continue learning. Working Definition of Conceptual Change Conceptual change, the dependent variable for this study, is defined as a cognitive- affective process a learner undergoes when attempting to accommodate new ideas into his or her REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 6 6 existing schema (Dole & Sinatra, 1998; Gregoire, 2003; Posner, 1982). The process of accommodation that occurs via conceptual change, in some cases, involved correcting a misconception or restructuring a naïve conception. Statement of the Problem Generations of educators and scholars from the time of John Dewey, have hailed the importance of models of education designed to enrich the lives of learners and benefit the society as a whole, whether for ideals such as democracy, workforce readiness, or cultural enrichment and engagement (Dewey, 1916, 1938; Freire, 2000; Horton & Freire, 1990; Pugh, 2011; Spring, 2009). One underlying theme of these models of education is an intention to make school learning relevant and meaningful in the life contexts of the student. While few practitioners or researchers would disagree with the assertion that education should be meaningful in the life context of the student, it is less common to find instruction and assessment practices that explicitly work to understand and support the experience of individual students with integrating and analyzing a specific idea or concept into one’s own schema. For example, how often does a teacher consider the question, “What do I know about how, and if, my student applied that concept in her experiences outside of class?” Dewey (1938, p. 39) said this nearly eighty years ago speaking of the role of teachers, “...It is the business to be on the alert to see what attitudes and habitual tendencies are being created...He must, in addition, have that sympathetic understanding of individuals as individuals which gives him an idea of what is actually going on in the minds of those who are learning” (Dewey, 1938, p. 39). In the case of learning and using history knowledge, Limón (2002) has argued that, “The integration of knowledge and contextualization of situations appear to be highly relevant skills” (Limón, 2002, p. 276). The problem according to Limón (2002) is that most high school history courses teach history chronologically, focusing on particular events and locations, and not taking REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 7 7 the time to contextualize them in time and space, nor integrate other knowledge students may have. Further, Limón (2002) asserts, History learning assessment should place more emphasis on such concepts [empire, revolution or democracy]: what teachers tend to evaluate is how much correct information students remember from the textbook accounts, but it is unusual to ask students to compare types of concepts mentioned above in different historical situations, in order to give them meaning or relate them to others. In general, more attention should be paid to the teaching of history concepts (Limón, 2002, p. 277). I designed this study to focus on how teachers model, facilitate and assess how students learn and use specified historical or civics concepts contextualized in time and space. Further, few studies have examined the cultivation of habits of conceptual application beyond the classroom (Pugh, 2011). Studies that have been conducted have sought to understand this phenomenon in the science classroom. Therefore, I sought to observe how that process unfolds in, and outside, the history classroom. Pugh (2011) offered a way forward in expanding our understanding the ideas of John Dewey, as well as constructs developed in later research, such as transfer and conceptual change. Pugh (2010) presents the integrative construct, TE, as the cognitive-psychological conceptual framework that could bridge scholarship in areas of transfer, conceptual change, motivation, and task value. Purpose of the Study Pugh (2011) refers to the perennial wisdom of Dewey (1938), who found that the purpose of life is found in the richness of our experiences that increase our capacity for future meaningful experiences (Pugh, 2011, p. 108). Ultimately, the purpose of this study was to better understand what influences motivational dimensions behind student thinking outside of the domain-specific REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 8 8 instructional setting, as well as the role of domain specific interest and emotions. In theory, if we better understand how to help students apply and value history content, they will be more likely to become effective independent learners. The study was designed to understand impact of the pedagogical model, TTES (Pugh, 2004) as it is applied to the teaching of History, or TTEH. The study measured the effects of the TTEH intervention on conceptual change, TE as an aggregated construct that combines the behavioral, cognitive and affective components: motivated use, expansion of perception and experiential value. In some cases, in order to provide further detail, the individual components of TE were analyzed. Additionally situational interest, individual interest and epistemic emotions were also examined. Research Questions The study addressed the following research questions: 1. Do participants (teachers and students) who experience TTEH instructional intervention for history concepts report significantly higher levels of TE (use, change, value) than those in a control group who have traditional instruction? 2. Do participants who experience TTEH instruction demonstrate greater conceptual change than those in the control group? 3. Does TTEH influence situational interest, individual interest and epistemic emotions in the treatment group more than in the control? In regard to the first research question, based on prior research, I hypothesized that students who were guided through the TTEH intervention would report significantly higher degrees of TE than participants in the control condition (Heddy & Sinatra, 2013; Pugh, Linnenbrink-Garcia, Koskey, Stewart, & Manzey, 2010a). REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 9 9 Regarding conceptual change with the history concepts, I predicted that students in the treatment group would demonstrate greater conceptual change than in the control due to increased motivation and the demonstrated relationship between motivation and conceptual change (Dole & Sinatra, 1998). This was hypothesized to be due to the active use of concepts in one’s own experience, which would require students to navigate prior naïve or misconceptions and process them in a group setting the following day. Group discussion, where learners can hear the TE of other students, learners were supported to recognize their expansion of perception, which was predicted to increase experiential value for the concept and would then motivate the student to engage with that concept again outside of class. The third research question aimed to determine if there is a significant relationship between situational interest, epistemic emotions, and the treatment condition. I predicted that members of the treatment condition would be more interested in the concepts from class as they would see them through their own experience outside of the class (this included seeing the concept in another class however, e.g. English or science). This then would trigger or maintain situational interest (Hidi & Renninger, 2006), as well as more positive academic emotions as new ways of seeing are developed (Broughton et al., 2011). REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 10 10 CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW The purpose of this study was to understand how the TTEH intervention compares to “typical” classroom history or social studies instruction for promoting TE, conceptual change, positive epistemic emotions and topic interest in secondary school students. Before looking at the literature on TE and Teaching for Transformative Experience (TTE), conceptual change, emotions and interest, which inform this study, it is important to consider the recent research on teaching and learning in history. Teaching and Learning History Dewey (1900/1990) was one of the first American philosophers to question how subject matter from history or science could have real value and significance in everyday experience. Since, history education in schools has ranged from didactic models designed to foster a sense of belonging and respect for the established order to more contemporary notions of education for critical thinking and democratic citizenship (Laville, 2004). Most recently however, scholarship on historic consciousness has sought to reckon with the challenges of collective memory that provide the context for historical thinking (Seixas, 2004). The following paragraphs will address the scholarship on the learning of history, historical thinking practices, and historical consciousness. In the late 1990’s scholars convening through the American Historical Association began to evaluate the progress in research on history education (Stearns, Seixas, & Wineburg, 2000). The authors noted that a major outcome was the transition of support for a move from a chronology-based history instruction to a thematic-based instruction that sees history as distinct from of knowing and understanding (Stearns et al., 2000). This is not to suggest chronological thinking is not important, it is. Drake and Nelson (2005) make the point that chronological REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 11 11 thinking is not “chronological order,” per popular belief, but rather, chronological thinking is about patterning relationships over the course of time. However in an effort to develop chronological thinking, emerge discussions of national standards, which tend to include more history content than can be learned, according to Stearns et al (2000), “One cannot simply ‘include more’” (Stearns et al., 2000, p. 7). Instead history instruction becomes about choices that educators have to make about what outcomes, disciplinary practices, and habits of mind are necessary. An example of an effort to organize standards comes from 1996, when The National Center for History in the Schools (NCHS) at UCLA published its National Standards for History, which included the following historical thinking standards: 1) chronological thinking, 2) historical comprehension, 3) historical analysis and interpretation, 4) historical research capabilities, and 5) historical issues-analysis and decision-making (Crabtree & Nash, 1996). The NCHS National Standards provide a framework for students to learn to think like historians, habits that include combining factual, procedural, conceptual and meta-cognitive knowledge in the domains of history (Anderson, Krathwohl, & Bloom, 2001). To the extent that history learning is seen by some scholars as an “identity project,” determining the way learners of history understand themselves and the world around them (Stearns et al., 2000), it is important to create an awareness in teachers and students that beliefs about history shape one’s understanding of self. Rosenzweig (2000) examined how Americans use, think, and feel about the past though a telephone survey of 808 Americans, with groups of 200 individuals representing African American, Mexican American and Sioux Indians. When asked, “How connected to the past do you feel?” on a 1-10 point scale, 1 meaning least and 10 most, participants reported a mean score of 6.5 for “reading a book about the past,” 6.0 for “watching a movie or TV program about the past,” and 5.7 for “studying history in school” (Rosenzweig, 2000). While these numbers REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 12 12 represent a wide variety of demographic groups and geographic regions in the United States, the findings do tell a story about how Americans feel connected with the past in their daily lives. The author concluded that it is through a dialogue between past and present that generates the greatest meaning, providing guidance for human questions of “relationships, identity, morality and agency” (Rosenzweig, 2000, p. 280). Rosenzweig’s (2000) findings illuminate American’s modest level of engagement with historical thinking and set the stage for the problem of raising historical consciousness. Seixas (2004) recommends drawing attention to the relationship between academic and popular history. This suggestion provides a useful theoretical framework for understanding the ways in which students may experience thinking about the past, and the disconnect that may limit student engagement and motivation. Seixas (2004) cautions that this is not a suggestion to create “mini- historians” expected to do the work of professional academics, but what we know about the habits of mind of historians along these lines may be useful in developing the orientation of young learners to the connection between past and present (Seixas, 2004). This is echoed in the work of Bodo Von Borries (2000) who concluded that, “textbooks necessarily reflect ‘school’ rather than ‘life,’ ‘results’ rather than ‘problems.’ ...Therefore, historical instruction must go beyond school and textbooks to embrace films, television, newspapers, museums, archives, citizens’ initiatives and other evidence of life lived in a contentious historical culture” (Von Borries, 2000). History Knowledge, Concepts and Meta-Concepts In order to understand how individuals experience historical concepts, one must first define history learning. Using a Revised Bloom’s Taxonomic approach, we could conceive of history knowledge in four separate but interconnected domains: factual, procedural, conceptual and meta-cognitive (Anderson et al., 2001). The factual knowledge domain is most often REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 13 13 associated with history learning, usually to a fault, as students have been made to remember lists of dates and names. Clearly, as in other subjects, knowing facts, including dates, names, and terminology is important. Knowing that cotton production was plenteous in the American South during the 19 th century or that the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4 th , 1776, is useful for organizing events and recognizing patterns to build upon with future learning. But history is more than a collection of factual knowledge. It includes procedural knowledge or the “how to” do historical work. Knowing how to read an historical atlas, data table, or primary source are essential skills for historical analysis (Crabtree & Nash, 1996; Drake & Nelson, 2005). Conceptual knowledge allows individuals to categorize types of events or phenomena in history. Examples include empire, revolutions, industrialization, democracy or globalization. With these concepts at hand, individuals can think more abstractly about historical trends. Drake and Nelson (2005) offer ten social studies themes for the history classroom that also fall along the conceptual knowledge dimension: culture; time, continuity and change; people, places and environments; individual development and identity; power, authority and governance; production, distribution, and consumption; science, technology, and society; global connections; civic ideals and practices. Finally, metacognitive knowledge describes the individual’s ability to reflect on their own knowledge, recognize the facts, procedures, and concepts he or she does not know or understand, and regulate their knowledge construction (Anderson et al., 2001). Effective history instruction finds a way to balance the domains of knowledge, but history as a domain of learning involves another layer to the conceptual domain which historians call historiography, or meta-conceptual knowledge for the purpose of this review. Meta-concepts in history. Various scholars (Leinhardt & Ravi, 2008; Limón, 2002; Rosenzweig, 2000; Stearns et al., 2000) make the case that historical analysis is as much about REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 14 14 the history as it is about the historian and the reciprocal influence between the two, in other words, history, and historiography complementary. Limón (2002) also presents an important overview of historiography or the epistemology of history, including the following traditions: 1) the positivist view values objectivity based on empirical evidence, where methodology of source interpretation is always circumspect; 2) the School of Annales values the study of all humans, opening the field of observation to those groups lacking official documents; 3) the Marxist/materialist view concentrates on class conflict via social and economic analysis, as well as effects on individual consciousness; 4) the cliometric or quantitative view of history values quantifiable variables that may be relevant for explanations; 5) the School of Mentalities is interested in how groups of people saw themselves in particular contexts, requiring empathy and cautions presentism, that is, making sense of the past using present day sensibilities; and finally 6) the narrative approach, which embraces subjectivity (Limón, 2002). Beyond the controversies of historiography, history teachers must also consider the degree to which history emphasizes or balances objectivity and subjectivity, whether the focus is on the experience of individuals in the past or societal trends (Limón, 2002). In particular there are two more issues that may be of importance to this study focused on the learning and application of history concepts. First, Limón (2002) points out the variety of interpretations for the use and application of historical thinking. Because TTEH calls for the teacher to explicitly model engagement with the concept beyond the classroom, the teacher should position that value in relation to other meta-concepts, i.e. if the teacher values how the concept of industrialization has helped her think about how different societies have changed in time, she could also mention that it is equally valuable think about the concept in a different way, such as how a certain individual might have felt working in a factory for the first time, or that popular history seems to REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 15 15 view industrialization in a positive light through monikers like “modernity” or “progress” and that these popular notions influence our thinking. Secondly, similar to the balance of focus on the individual in the past compared to a society, the teacher must consider how to balance different time scales, such as days of an event, a whole event (e.g. a war), or an era (Limón, 2002). While teachers are likely able to help students generalize by focusing on an era of history, such as the Renaissance, they must be careful to avoid over generalization. Historical thinking is both a cognitive and affective process that is embedded in a socio- cultural context (Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007). Based on personal experiences, every individual develops a priori assumptions about the past and their connection to it, which influences one’s beliefs, values, and actions (Stearns et al., 2000). As such, scholars have argued for a history curriculum and instruction that helps the individual situate his or herself within the practice of academic and popular history (Drake & Nelson, 2005; Leinhardt & Ravi, 2008; Limón, 2002; Loewen, 1995; Seixas, 2004; Stearns et al., 2000). While factual, procedural and conceptual dimensions are all important for historical thinking (Anderson et al., 2001), meta- conceptual, or historiographic, thinking is often a source of misconceptions when constructing or interpreting the past (Limón, 2002). TTEH was hypothesized to be an effective instructional tool for teachers and students to connect academic history concepts from the classroom with observations of popular history concepts in their daily experience. I believed that meta-concepts would emerge as teachers and students began to grapple with popular history and consider how that history would change the way the individual thinks about the concept in time and space. Habits While much of the literature on history education speaks to the importance of developing various thinking habits (Drake & Nelson, 2005; Leinhardt & Ravi, 2008; Limón, 2002; Stearns et al., 2000) no studies have looked at the instructional and assessment practices that explicitly REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 16 16 model, foster, monitor and develop these habits within the domain of history. Habits can be defined as “automated response dispositions that are cued by aspects of the performance context (i.e., environment, preceding actions) (Neal et al., 2006). They are learned through a process in which repetition incrementally tunes cognitive processors in procedural memory (i.e., the memory system that supports the minimally conscious control of skilled action) (Neal et al., 2006). If the application of historical concepts to one’s own experience in the world is a goal of education, we must then be concerned with both the process of supporting engagement with concepts beyond the classroom, whether between academic subjects, e.g. history, science or English, or to the world outside of school, and evaluating the extent to which students accurately apply the concepts. Application necessarily involves a behavior as well as cognitive engagement, and can be considered as a habit of thought. We must also acknowledge that learners will already have a way of seeing and interacting with the world around them, i.e. they already have habits of thought. Transformative Experience as an Integrative Construct Pugh (2004) describes a model that attempts to cultivate thinking habits outside of school called TE, which is considered a form of engagement with school-based content in out-of-school learning environments. TE includes behavioral, affective, and cognitive components. As teachers consider the engagement of their students in learning history both inside and outside the history classroom, it is useful to consider each of these components. Following Pugh (2004) described behavioral engagement as student involvement with history both in and out of the class. Affective engagement characterizes how students feel about history concepts. Finally, cognitive engagement refers to how students think about history content both in and outside of the classroom. The following sections present how Pugh operationalized each of these three components, as well as how they may apply to teaching and learning history. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 17 17 Motivated Use, Expansion of Perception and Transfer Pugh (2011) suggests that “motivated use” is different from what is commonly thought of as transfer, because it emphasizes the agency of the individual. Thus, “motivated use” is a situation in which a learner chooses to apply his or her own thinking on a concept to a new situation, resulting in transfer. Before considering this nuanced definition, it is worth distinguishing various relevant definitions of transfer. As a “particular kind of transfer” (Pugh et al., 2010b, p. 277), TE is engagement with the specific academic content outside of the classroom. Transfer can be considered as “task-driven” and “free-choice” (Pugh & Bergin, 2005). For the former, transfer is necessary for task completion, but for the latter, “the context affords transfer but transfer is not needed to engage in the activity” (Pugh & Bergin, 2005, p. 17). Pugh (2010b) explains that TE falls into this category and this holds true for TE in history. This study makes the assumption that a large percentage of people spend most of their experience in the world disengaged from historical thinking. That is, people do not typically use history concepts in their daily experience, nor do they have a new way of seeing their environment through history concepts. Pugh (2010b) also makes a useful control to "situative transfer," which relies on human agency (Pugh et al., 2010b, p. 277). He argues that TE requires the motivation of the individual largely based in their social experience with the learning task. TTEH is designed to create a classroom culture that values the active use and discovery of history concepts in daily experience and as a result students will more likely experience a certain form of transfer similar to situative transfer. Pugh (2010b) sees TE as a way to encourage anticipation in the learner, a part of the process of expanding one’s perception of their environment vis-à-vis opportunities to apply concepts (Pugh et al., 2010b). REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 18 18 Experiential Value Pugh (2011) uses both utility and intrinsic value to define experiential value, one of the three components of TE. Intrinsic value is experienced during tasks when an individual experiences enjoyment, fulfillment or interest. Utility value occurs when the individual finds aspects of the task useful for one’ future goals or life experiences (Pugh, 2011). TTEH is designed for teachers to regularly employ positive utility and intrinsic value inductions with students before sending them out to use those concepts on their own. Johnson and Sinatra (2012), provided an example that, prior to a reading task, teachers shared the task utility value induction with students so they could consider how the information could be applied to future situations, like one’s career (Johnson & Sinatra, 2012). The authors (Johnson & Sinatra, 2012) found that the type of instructional induction predicted the response, but that the utility value inductions were more highly correlated with engagement and conceptual change. Transformative Experience with History Concepts and Meta-concepts Despite nearly a century of thinking on how to promote TE for students, it is only fairly recently with the work of Pugh (2002) that instructional models have been documented and empirically tested within the domain of science learning to foster TE. Pugh (2002) describes two elements for this process. First, the teacher’s role is to “reanimate concepts and craft them into ideas” (Pugh, 2002, p. 1105). In other words, the teacher can model how to perceive, or “see,” the concepts in one’s experience, understand why it is important and how it can be useful. The second element is the apprenticeship approach through which students are able to participate in the use, discover new ways of seeing vis-à-vis the concept with the mentor, and find a place to participate in the discourse of experiencing that concept in the world (Pugh, 2002). In his study, Pugh (2002) used the Teaching for Transformative Experience in Science (TTES) intervention in a Midwestern high school zoology class (n = 17) utilizing a case-based REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 19 19 approach. Pugh (2002) claims that the class was well suited to work with his model where he emphasized an idea-based approach. While both approaches focused on exploring concepts, the idea-based approach, facilitated by Pugh, sought to increase the students’ perception of the concept of adaptation and natural selection to all animals, increase the frequency by which students would use the idea of adaptation or natural selection to see animals, and increase the students’ value for that way of seeing. “My goal here was to awaken the students’ anticipation about how the concept of adaptation could allow them to see animals in an exciting, new way” (Pugh, 2002, p. 108). Beyond this approach to structuring the content of the course, Pugh (2002) included the following approaches to modeling and scaffolding: (a) sharing personal experiences of seeing the concept of adaptation when looking at various animals in new ways and recognizing how that increases interest and value for the concept, (b) in-class discussion of adaptation cases, (c) a video for students to practice identifying features of adaptation of certain animals, and (d) a lab during which students analyzed animal parts for traits that suggested adaptive features. The case-based approach also did the lab, but it is worthwhile to point out that the difference was the embedded discussion about how the practice in the lab would help future experience and value for the concept outside of class. Another way of conceiving of the intervention, TTEH is to see it as a participatory model through which teachers and students practice together using, re-seeing and valuing concepts (whether primary or second-order) in their overlapping cultural contexts. Greeno and van de Sande (2007) called this a “situative perspective” that bridges socio-cultural and individual cognitive concepts and provides an opportunity for co-creating schemata through “constructive listening.” In this regard, teachers create opportunities for conceptual growth through increased “conceptual agency…[individuals] being entitled to greater initiative in interpreting, adapting, questioning, criticizing and modifying concepts and methods in its subject-matter domain” REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 20 20 (Greeno & van de Sande, 2007, p. 16). This process leads to new perspectives of one’s experiences and allows for what Greeno and van de Sande (2007) call, “constructive listening,” a process by which participants attentively question and make inferences of the informants statements. The TTEH model intentionally creates opportunities for students to listen to each other’s motivated use, expansion of perception and experiential value for specified first and second-order history concepts. Heddy and Sinatra (2013) conducted a study using TTES with 55 undergraduate students learning about concepts of evolution. The intervention proved to be more effective than the control, providing further support for use of TTEH. This study will be described in more detail in the next section. Conceptual Change Conceptual change theory has shed light on how individuals change or restructure their thinking to overcome preconceived notions, naïve conceptions, or misconceptions (Sinatra & Pintrich, 2003). Conceptual change research has overwhelmingly been conducted in science. However, this is important in the area for learning history, as historical thinking is bound to belief systems and ideologies of one’s cultural milieu. Pugh (2011) points out that “acting on an idea” as is the goal in TE, is a form of intentional transfer, but also parallels processes of conceptual change. Therefore, the body of work on conceptual change theory will provide additional support and new perspectives on transformative experiences of teachers and students with history concepts. History of Conceptual Change Conceptual change theory builds upon the Piagetian notion of accommodation (Piaget, 1954), a process by which the learner has to adjust or restructure existing knowledge structures (schema) to “accommodate” a new or revised conception. Posner (1982) offered four important REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 21 21 conditions predicating successful accommodation: 1) dissatisfaction with existing conceptions, 2) new conceptions must be intelligible, 3) new conceptions must be plausible, 4) new conceptions should be fruitful. The first condition, “dissatisfaction,” opened the door to affective dimensions of conceptual change. In 1993, Pintrich challenged the conceptual change research community to consider the effect of motivational beliefs and affective factors on conceptual change (Sinatra, 2005). Dole and Sinatra (1998) proposed the Cognitive Reconstruction of Knowledge Model (CRKM) that integrated Posner’s (1982) “conditions” along with motivational dimension, to describe how engagement with content can lead to conceptual change. As the learner begins to accommodate a new concept, assuming it is comprehensible, coherent, plausible, and compelling, and offers some value for the learner, he or she will be motivated to pursue the accommodation. The degree of conceptual change then depends on the level of engagement experienced by the learner. Gregorie (2003) challenged the CRKM with a new model, the Cognitive-Affective Model of Conceptual Change (CAMCC), which emphasizes the subconscious initial appraisals of the learner receiving messages. In one scenario, the learner is able to complete systematic processing by way of motivation and ability, and achieve “true accommodation” and conceptual change. In the second scenario, the learner either follows a “benign-positive appraisal” or a “threat appraisal” leading to either simple assimilation (superficial belief change) or no belief change at all (Gregoire, 2003). Transformative Experience (TE) as an integrative construct (Pugh, 2011) overlaps well with the CRKM. TE requires motivated use of concepts, a change or expansion of perception and value for those concepts. In many cases, concepts in history require accommodation and thus conceptual change. TTEH, in some cases, supported conceptual change by helping students engage with the content in personally meaningful ways. Because students are guided to experience the selected concept in their own lives, it was predicted that students would naturally REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 22 22 find personal relevance and would have increased engagement. Further, there is a social context for students to experience and share experiences the concepts. In terms of CRKM, TTEH provides a cognitive-motivational process for facilitating strong conceptual change. According to the CAMCC, TTEH may alleviate stress appraisals with effective reciprocal teaching, or peer-to- peer teaching, and daily practice. Furthermore, CRKM and CAMCC will provide useful frames for post-intervention analysis. Heddy and Sinatra (2013) found that the TTES intervention for university students increased conceptual change of concepts of evolution. The study differed slightly from Pugh’s studies (Pugh, 2004; Pugh et al., 2010b), as they were designed for university undergraduate students in a setting where field trips like those conducted by Pugh are uncommon. Instead Heddy and Sinatra (2013) presented a PowerPoint lecture on six concepts of evolution (adaptation, variation, inheritance, speciation, domestication and extinction). During the experimental condition, the instructor emphasized experiential value, expansion of perception, and motivated use of the content. For example, the instructor expressed experiential value by talking about the importance of taking a full course of antibiotics. Other examples were used and with each the instructor talked about how it helped him appreciate how each animal is related, having evolved from single cell organisms. To help students appreciate how their own perception of the world can change with the use of evolutionary concepts, the instructor used examples of evolution in popular media (movies, TV shows, like Planet Earth, books, etc.). When viewing these samples, the instructor talked about how the evolutionary concepts helped him view the world in a new way. Lastly, students were encouraged to re-see the discussed concepts outside of class on a voluntary basis. The next class session, the treatment group held a whole group discussion about their everyday experience with the evolution concepts. The instructor modeled a new example about chimpanzees and humans designed to illustrate the idea of speciation. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 23 23 Again students were encouraged to experience the concepts outside of class and reported back the following day. The authors (Heddy & Sinatra, 2013) found that students who experienced TTES model showed greater TE and conceptual change. Heddy and Sinatra (2013) also showed a decrease in negative emotions, and important finding for students learning about a controversial subject that can spark strong emotions. The Heddy and Sinatra (2013) study serves as a model for the present study due to the fact that the intervention was effectively used to facilitate conceptual change. Conceptual Change with History Concepts As in all learning, students do not begin a class as blank slates, but rather they bring with them ideas, personal experiences, motivations and dispositions. Limón (2002) outlined four dimensions of individuals’ prior domain specific knowledge: 1) certainty of knowledge, from uncertain to certain; 2) affective entrenchment of knowledge, low emotional reactions to strong emotional reactions; 3) coherence of knowledge, from no coherence to highly structured and ordered according to the individual’s theories; 4) generality-specificity of knowledge, from specific knowledge to one area of history to general knowledge applicable to a number of areas. Teachers of history are likely to be familiar with the combination of these dimensions in each student’s historical thinking. Individual thinking that falls on extreme ends of the dimension continuums poses both challenges and opportunities for history learning and conceptual change. Limón (2002) also analyzed the differences of conceptual change research in science and history. Concepts in history are often implicit, due to a focus on factual knowledge (events, people, etc.) (Limón, 2002). Students are left to infer the relevance and applicability of those concepts. Concepts in history also change in meaning over time, such as the meaning of democracy in ancient Greece compared to the meaning of democracy for participants in the Arab Spring. Agreement on definitions of these concepts is often controversial due to epistemological REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 24 24 characteristics of the subject; essentially, as Limón points out, history concepts are polysemic and it is difficult to construct “reliable and solid global representations of concepts (Limón, 2002, p. 261).” Leinhardt and Ravi (2008) also present common misconceptions or “naïve assumptions” about history falling the category of historiography. First that history is about a “complete neutral account of the sequence of events” and second, that it is a matter of “getting the smallest of details correct in some archeological sense” (Leinhardt & Ravi, 2008, p. 255). Further, we gather the “memory” of the past through cultural sources: familial tales, modern period movies, museums, religious texts, monuments and scholarly texts (Leinhardt & Ravi, 2008; Seixas, 2004). Such an experience of histories requires epistemic switching, between multiple meanings, from “reenactment and commemoration” to “epic heroic tales of national identity and virtue,” to “contentious, argued analytic and interpretive accounts” of history (Leinhardt & Ravi, 2008). Meta-concepts and conceptual change. Limón (2002) also points out the role of second-order concepts or meta-concepts in history learning as more frequent sources of misconceptions. These include “evidence, cause, explanation and empathy…time, space, source, fact, description and narration (Limón, 2002, p. 263).” This was popularized in the best selling book Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your High School History Textbook Got Wrong, where Loewen (1995) argued for the importance of teaching meta-concepts due to the problematic bias of textbook learning: “Textbooks also keep students in the dark about the nature of history. History is furious debate informed by evidence and reason. Textbooks encourage students to believe that history is facts to be learned” (Loewen, 1995, p. 16). Meta-concepts provide an essential awareness or lens for applying conceptual thinking in history. Limón (2002) sees these meta-concepts acting more as a sieve for students’ understanding of the content, some sticks, some passes through, but it is very difficult for students to embrace alternative views. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 25 25 Teaching for historical understanding and conceptual change. Limón (2002) proposes three important skills for historical understanding: relativistic thought, narration/ argumentation/ problem-solving, analytical and integrational reasoning. Relativistic thought involves three features (Kramer, 1983; Limón, 2002): a) awareness of the relativistic nature of knowledge, b) acceptance of contradiction, and c) integration of contradiction into the dialectical whole. Therefore, students who develop facility with meta-concepts would be able to demonstrate the relativistic thought. Limón (2002) also proposes that high school students be able to move between solving problems, developing arguments and narrating history. In this way, students are challenged to employ various historiographic positions. Lastly, Limón (2002) argues for “analytical and integrational reasoning skills,” such as analysis of situations vis-à-vis economic, social, political and ideological levels of analysis. Furthermore, post-analysis situations should be contextualized in global history. Limón (2002) provides the example of the common practice of teaching the French Revolution in isolation, without awareness of concurrent global trends. Furthermore, history-learning assessments should place more emphasis on concepts that are traditionally implicit (Limón, 2002), such as the idea of revolution not necessarily examined conceptually in a unit on the French, Russian or Islamic Revolutions. Teachers should also be aware of their students’ misconceptions about history concepts and meta-concepts. Limón (2002) found the following similarities or differences between conceptual change in science and history: while in science students have experience with concepts (e.g. physics concepts), history concepts are abstract rather than concrete; both naïve science and second-order history concepts are implicit and influence understanding (i.e. the epistemologies used to “know” history are not explicit); both science and history misconceptions are resistant to change; while science ideas tend to be largely based on “macro-level” analysis (observable phenomena), student ideas in history tend to fall into presentism, that is, seeing the REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 26 26 past through a contemporary worldview; while naïve ideas in science can prove useful, students did not consider history as useful for everyday life, nor were history ideas predictive for their daily life; in science students tend to fail to differentiate between academic and everyday life contexts, while the same is true for history, students have difficulty contextualizing the relevance of particular events in time and space, such as the importance of the American Revolution within a global context. Implications for the TTEH model. There are both potential benefits and problems that were hypothesized to result from TTEH. While the strength of TTEH is to help students recognize concepts in their daily experience, thus increasing engagement and value for those concepts and hopefully history as a subject, students were believed to risk increased presentism with those concepts. However, effective TTEH implementation should bring the issue of presentism front and center. To this extent, historiography can be taught naturally as a part of the TTEH intervention. As a part of class discussions, students can share their experience with concepts, but also share how what they know and can predict about the differences with the concept in different temporal or spatial contexts. Interest Theory Four Phase Model of Interest Development As a motivational construct, interest is of central importance to understanding the transformative experience of students learning history (Pugh et al., 2010b). Interest in history will likely be correlated with motivated use and value. Next, I highlight relevant advances in research on interest development and how they might apply to conducting and interpreting the intervention. The Four Phase Model of Interest Development (Hidi & Renninger, 2006), is a psychological process that at later phases "is a predisposition to reengage content that applies to REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 27 27 in-school and out-of-school, for young and old alike” (Hidi & Renninger, 2006, p. 111). There are two key aspects to this: the first is that interest can be developed in a Vygotskian sense with the help of more advance learners, and second, that interest is about engagement both in and out- of-school. The fact that the authors make this explicit is important. A primary purpose for TTEH is to make explicit how using and re-seeing history concepts outside the classroom is, in fact, interesting. Through an expansion of perception, learners are able to see the world in a new way. The authors point out that interest has been demonstrated to improve attention, goals, and levels of learning, in addition to having socio-emotional components (Hidi & Renninger, 2006). This is due to the fact that at each phase of interest development, there are increasing levels of affect, knowledge, and value. The four phases of interest development are: triggered situational, maintained situational, emerging individual and well-developed individual (Hidi & Renninger, 2006). Key aspects of this model are the interaction of the individual and the environment, as well as the gradual merger of affective and cognitive dimensions to the content (Hidi & Renninger, 2006). At the later phase, the individual becomes more curious, pursuing more questions, experiencing cognitive growth that produces positive feelings (Hidi & Renninger, 2006). This action inspired by interest may also lead to flow states or “optimal experience” during which the individual directs attention and concentration to the idea at hand (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Krapp, 2002). According to Csikszentmihalyi, “...The goal of studying is no longer to make the grade, earn a diploma, and find a good job. Rather, it is to understand what is happening around one, to develop a personally meaningful sense of what one’s experience is all about. From that will come the profound joy of the thinker...” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, p. 142). TTEH is scaffolded according to this model of interest development. Initially, students practice TE with various familiar sources, like TV clips or songs, in the classroom. Students REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 28 28 come back to class every day for a TE "show and tell" about their experience using and valuing the concepts. For some time, it is likely that students will move into a maintained situational interest. Ideally, participants in the TTEH model will eventually move to emerging individual interest with increased TE in their own lives. Emotions Theory Pekrun and Linnenbrink-Garcia (2012) argue for the “critical importance” of emotions, beyond being “epiphenomena” of human learning, and outline the main features of emotions, the impact of those emotions on academic performance and the reciprocal causation and regulation of those emotions. Emotions include affective, cognitive, physiological, motivational, and expressive components (Pekrun, Goetz, Titz, & Perry, 2002; Pekrun & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2012). Moods on the other hand are of lesser intensity and “lack a specific referent” (Pekrun & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2012, p. 261). Combined, emotions and moods form an affective state that can be of positive or negative valence and activation. Types of academic emotions include achievement emotions, epistemic emotions, topic emotions, and social emotions. Emotions can also be shaped via cognitive appraisals of one’s situation (Linnenbrink & Pintrch, 2004). In regard to an individual’s affective response to a particular situation, Fiedler’s dual-process model (2000) based on Piagetian notions of assimilation and accommodation provides a useful framework (Fiedler, 2000; Linnenbrink & Pintrch, 2004). Under the dual-processing model, negative moods may be beneficial for accommodation, while positive moods are likely beneficial for assimilation (Linnenbrink & Pintrch, 2004). Types of Academic Emotions Achievement emotions are a type of academic emotions that refer to one’s feeling of competence according to established standards (Pekrun & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2012, p. 262). Here the student’s feelings are oriented towards performance in the class, rather than towards the REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 29 29 content or social experience, which is of interest in this study. The following section will delineate a different type of academic emotions called epistemic emotions that students will likely experience during this study. Epistemic Emotions. Students may also experience epistemic emotions, emotions about knowledge and learning, during learning that may or may not overlap with achievement emotions (Pekrun & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2012). They are cognitive in nature and involve the processing of new information. Students may experience cognitive incongruity (surprise or curiosity) that challenges their prior knowledge (Broughton et al., 2011; Pekrun & Linnenbrink- Garcia, 2012). Pekrun and Linnenbrink-Garcia (2012) have also suggested a sequence of epistemic emotions that includes: (1) surprise, (2) curiosity and situational interest if the surprise is not dissolved, (3) anxiety in case of severe incongruity and information that deeply disturbs existing cognitive schemas, (4) enjoyment and delight experienced when recombining information such that the problem gets solved, or (5) frustration when this seems not to be possible (Pekrun & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2012, p. 263). Of note is that situational interest emerges with curiosity when the student experiences incongruity. As students apply concepts to their own experiences via TTEH, it was hypothesized that there would be greater opportunity for cognitive incongruity, especially as the process of re- seeing history concepts may cause students to develop curiosity and situational interest with their world in a way he or she had not before. This type of transformative experience could either lead to anxiety, as it may disturb existing schemas, or enjoyment, as students are able to integrate new conception into their personal experience. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 30 30 Emotions and Engagement Emotions also influence student engagement, and thus academic learning (Pekrun & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2012). Because the purpose of this study is to promote engagement with history learning beyond the classroom, the role of emotions need be considered. Cognitive engagement involves cognitive processes related to attention, memory, and self-regulation (Pekrun & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2012). According to Pekrun and Linnenbrink-Garcia (2012), positive task-related emotions support cognitive engagement, while numerous studies have revealed the detrimental effect on cognitive resources from the impact of negative emotions. Cognitive engagement is an essential component of expansion of perception and re-seeing. Through TTEH students are hypothesized to have greater positive emotions with history concepts, largely because those concepts are integrated in the personal experience and self- schemas of the student, which in turn will allow for greater cognitive engagement with the concept. Motivational and behavioral engagement is also impacted by emotions. Motivational engagement has to do the with the formation of goals and behavioral engagement has to do with the efforts to fulfill those goals (Pekrun & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2012). Similarly, cognitive- behavioral engagement involves both the “complex cognitive processes” (Pekrun & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2012, p. 264) of the learner and the metacognitive self-regulation that sustains and manages behaviors (Pekrun & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2012; Schunk, Pintrich, & Meece, 2008). When engaging in the TTEH model, students will draw upon cognitive-behavioral engagement processes when attempting to use class concepts out of the class and consider how it changes the way they see the world. The last important form of engagement is social-behavioral, an experience through which students interact with peers and the teacher to convey experiences (Pekrun & Linnenbrink- REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 31 31 Garcia, 2012). Positive emotions are likely to increase social-behavioral engagement (Pekrun & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2012), and the TTEH model is unique in that the individual experiences of students will likely have positive-activated emotions by way of which students can co-construct meaning. The social-behavioral engagement of sharing personal experiences will also allow for students to understand the cognitive-behavioral experience of their peers (Pekrun & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2012). Role of Emotions in Conceptual Change Learning Gregoire (2003) made a contribution to conceptual change theory by emphasizing the role of mood during the conceptual change process. Seemingly counter intuitive, the Cognitive- Affective Model of Conceptual Change (CAMCC) argues that negative moods, not emotions, are likely to facilitate conceptual change: “Positive moods are more likely to result in heuristic processing and negative moods in systematic processing” (Gregoire, 2003, p. 166). According to Gregoire (2003) this involves a necessary stress appraisal due to increased cognitive demands, assuming sufficient self-efficacy for the task; the individual will be motivated to work through the process of accommodating the new idea. Summary History teaching and learning has undergone various transformations over the last century, most recently with the development of post-modern theories which made room for an appreciation for the practice of historiography (Seixas, 2004; Stearns et al., 2000). This can be seen in new standards stressing the importance of history thinking habits designed to build historiographic awareness in students, to recent discussions about historical consciousness and collective memory (Seixas, 2004). The importance of improving student engagement with historical thinking and motivation cannot be understated as humanity becomes increasingly interconnected, urbanized and flooded with news and information. The opportunities for REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 32 32 misconceptions and naïve conceptions about the past, and consequent implications for the future carry on as before. More needs to be understood about how instruction can be supportive of conceptual change in history, including with meta-concepts and historical consciousness (Limón, 2002). TE is an integrative construct that carefully considers cognitive, behavioral and affective dimensions of learning. TTEH was hypothesized to be an effective strategy to increase student engagement through guided free-choice transfer opportunities (Pugh, 2011), likely to trigger and maintain situational interest (Hidi & Renninger, 2006) and epistemic emotions (Broughton et al., 2011). REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 33 33 CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY The following sections present the methodology used in this quasi-experimental study on history learning. Building on previous studies (Heddy & Sinatra, 2013; Pugh, 2002, 2004; Pugh et al., 2010b), this research applied mixed methods to both measure TE, conceptual change, interest and emotions, and gather additional qualitative data to increase external validity (Creswell, 2009). Participants and Setting This study took place in two high schools and one middle school in a large urban metropolis in the western United States. Participants were teachers and students in one 8th grade, one 10th, and one mixed 11th and 12th grade history classrooms. Each of the three schools has different socio-economic or gender-based demographics. Two class sections were chosen using a stratified random selection process; teachers were asked to assign colors to each course section and I then assigned the color to each condition (Creswell, 2009; Teddlie & Yu, 2007). Colors labels were used during discussions with the teacher. University High The first school, University High (pseudonym), is a private girls school serving roughly 430 students in grades 6-12 in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area. This site brought a demographic, which has the potential to shed light on whether there are differences in teaching and learning of history for girls. The study focused on an 11th grade U.S. History course, with one treatment group and one control group, each with roughly 12 students (n=24). Liberty was the overarching concept for the unit of study. Students explored philosophical notions of positive and negative liberty from Early America until today. Positive liberty can be understood as, “The possibility of acting — or the fact of acting — in such a way as to take control of one's life and REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 34 34 realize one's fundamental purposes” (Carter, 2012), while negative liberty is, “The absence of obstacles, barriers or constraints. One has negative liberty to the extent that actions are available to one in this negative sense. While negative liberty is usually attributed to individual agents, positive liberty is sometimes attributed to collectivities, or to individuals considered primarily as members of given collectivities” (Carter, 2012, para. 1). In other words, positive liberty views policies, rules or actions in terms of the freedom to have opportunities they bring a group of people, while negative liberty can be understood in terms of freedom from restrictions. Prior to the study, the teacher at University High believed that most of her students tend to adopt a negative conception of liberty; common for teenagers who are looking forward to new freedoms to go where they want and do as they choose. Students who received the TTEH treatment were supported to not only work to understand the importance of the concept in Early American history, but also, with the guidance of the instructor, practiced noticing and valuing liberty outside of the U.S. History class. Huntington Prep The second school, Huntington Prep (pseudonym) is a private co-educational school serving roughly 500 students in grades 7-12 in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area. The study took place in an 8th grade United States history course, with one treatment group and one control group each with approximately 17 students (n=30). The study focused on the concept of federalism in United States history. The teacher defined federalism as: providing benefits and challenges, having three types of powers (delegated, reserved and concurrent), and as having helped to shape U.S. history. The teacher asserted that most students hold a misconception that federalism in the late 18 th and 19 th Century United States is similar to today. Students in the TTEH treatment condition were supported to recognize forms of federalism in our society today, as well as in our popular and academic history. It was hypothesized that students in the treatment REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 35 35 condition would more frequently notice the effects of federalism in their experience and would be better able to articulate the role that federalism has played in United States history. Diego Rivera High School The third school, Diego Rivera High School (pseudonym) is a public charter high school serving approximately 400 students in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of 2012, of the student population, 87% identify as being Latino, 6% as Asian and 3% as Black (LAUSD, 2013). All of the students are classified as “economically disadvantaged” according the to the school district’s report card (LAUSD, 2013). The study took place in an 11 th and 12th grade United States Government course. One of the sections served as control group and received typical instruction. The other section, the treatment, received the TTEH approach, which the teacher layered over the typical instruction. Each section had approximately 27 students (n=54). At the Diego Rivera site, students learned about the role of the Executive branch of the United States federal government. The teacher reported that one of the most common misconceptions her students had coming into the course on United States Government, is the amount of power and authority the President has to create or change legislation. A more nuanced, less naïve, conception would include not only the different types of legislation (municipal, county, state, federal), but also the process for passing or amending legislation, especially at the federal level. Students in both sections were taught a more accurate conception of the role of the Executive branch regarding public policy, including the role of the Executive branch in policy making, the effects of a President’s ideology on policy, and the primary Constitutional conflict between Congress and the President in a decision to go to war. The treatment group received TTEH and was be encouraged to notice the concept outside of the Government class, reflect on how it changed the way they look at the world, and reflect on their REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 36 36 experiential value for the more accurate conception in their experience outside the classroom. The procedures section provides examples of TTEH. Design and Measures Figure 1. Study Design. The study design included two conditions, treatment and control, with pre and posttest intervention measures. For the first condition, one section from each class in the three schools REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 37 37 received the TTEH treatment. The second condition served as a control, through which students received typical instruction. Students in each section, both treatment and control were purposefully sampled for focus group interviews. Transformative Experience Measure To measure students’ TE, I used a TE Survey that uses 20 Likert scale items adapted from previous measures for TE in science learning (Pugh et al., 2010b). The TE Survey was administered before and after the intervention. The items measured the three components of TE: each student’s motivated use of the concept, re-seeing or expanded perception of the concept and experiential value for the concept. For example, for motivated use, one item asks for students to rate the extent to which they agree with the statement, “I thought about executive branch power (liberty or federalism) outside of class.” The Likert-based 6-point scale ranges from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” (See Appendix B for the complete survey). An example of re- seeing or expansion of perception is, “The executive branch power (liberty or federalism) ideas changed the way I view situations.” Lastly, an example of an experiential value item is, “The executive branch power (liberty or federalism) ideas I learned make my out-of-class experience more meaningful.” The survey has nine questions that determine the degree to which students actively used the history concept, five questions that measure the students’ expansion of perception, and six that measure the students’ experiential value for the history concept. All three dimensions were aggregated to provide an overall TE score. Reliability of the TE survey was high (pretest Chronbach’s α = .96; posttest Chronbach’s α = .94). Conceptual Change Measure The conceptual change measure for all three schools included four open-ended questions, based on the class assessment used in each course. Specifically, each assessed the students’ REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 38 38 understanding and conceptual change of the respective concepts of liberty, federalism or the role of the Executive branch. The conceptual knowledge was measured, both at pre and posttest, through open response questions and graded using a 4 point rubric: “0” indicating the student has an inaccurate, misconception, “1” indicating the student has a hybrid conception that mixes misconceptions with accurate understanding of the concept(s), a “2” indicating an accurate, but underdeveloped understanding of the concept(s), and “3” indicating the student has a well- developed and nuanced understanding of the concept. Each rubric followed this format but was specifically tailored to the content of that class. At University Prep, the conceptual change essay prompts were: 1) Define liberty. 2) How has the idea of liberty changed throughout American history? 3) How was the concept of liberty used in the framing of the United States Constitution? 4) To what extent is the concept of liberty relevant today? The four questions provided an overall sense of how the students think about the concepts, as well as providing specific prompts that address potential misconceptions with historic understandings of the concept of liberty as well as contemporary applications. Two researchers applied these codes to each of the four prompts and interrater reliability was recorded. Interrater reliability was established at 78%, considered substantial agreement (Fleiss, 1981). At Huntington Prep, the conceptual change essay prompts were: 1) Define federalism. 2) Why is it beneficial or problematic for the federal government to have some powers and for the states to have others? 3) What are delegated, reserved and concurrent powers? 4) What role has federalism played in U.S. history? How has it shaped U.S. history? The four questions at Huntington Prep provided an overall sense of how the student understands federalism, as well as specific prompts that address the types of powers expressed in the Constitution as well as how the concept has been understood over time in U.S. history. Two researchers applied these codes REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 39 39 to each of the four prompts and interrater reliability was recorded. Interrater reliability was established at 83%, considered substantial agreement (Fleiss, 1981). The four prompts for Diego Rivera included: 1) How do you define the role of the President of the United States? 2) What role does the President play in policymaking? 3) How can the political ideology of the President affect the entire country? 4) Describe the primary Constitutional conflict between Congress and the President with the decision to go to war? Overall the four questions provided a sense of how the student understood the Executive branch power and authority, as well as more specific information about how the student understood specific powers such as the decision to go to war. Two researchers applied these codes to each of the four prompts and interrater reliability was recorded. At Diego Rivera, interrater reliability was established at 77%, considered substantial agreement (Fleiss, 1981). To provide an example of the measure and scoring, students at Diego Rivera High School were asked to respond in one paragraph to a prompt similar to the following: “How do you define the role of the President of the United States?” Students who provided answers suggesting an omnipotent notion of the Presidency, lacking mention of federal, state or local governments and civil society, received a “0.” Students who articulate that citizens should rely on the president and one other stakeholder (e.g. Congress or state legislature) received a “1.” Cases where students are able to identify most stakeholders involved in the political process (e.g. three branches of federal, state and local governments) and the types of issues on which each is focused, received a “2.” Finally, students who carefully explain and provide examples of the political process and the roles of different stakeholders for different types of issues received a “3.” It was hypothesized that students in the TTEH condition would be better able to identify how different stakeholders address societal issues because they would have applied their REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 40 40 understanding of policy change to the issues they see everyday and would likely experience greater curiosity leading to positive emotions and interest motivating deeper learning and conceptual change. Interest in History Concepts Measure. To measure changes and variance of student situational and individual interest for each history concept, a modified version of the Situational Interest Survey (SIS) (Linnenbrink-Garcia et al., 2010) was administered before and after the intervention for treatment and control groups. This measure is of particular value as it helps distinguish changes the students’ situational interest in the respective history concept (liberty, federalism, role of the Executive branch) from both conditions, as well as changes in individual interest, an implicit goal for learning. Items were rewritten to reference the respective history concepts. The primary objective of this measure was to observe to what extent the TTEH intervention impacted student situational interest. Situational interest is composed of triggered interest, e.g. “I enjoy activities in this history class,” and maintained interest, e.g. “I think history is very interesting.” Using a 6-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree and 6 = strongly agree), participants ranked their levels of situational and individual interest. A high reliability score was determined for the Situational Interest measure at both pretest and posttest (α = .92). To measure individual interest, a modified version of the 8-item scale adapted by Linnenbrink-Garcia and colleagues (2010). The Individual Interest Scale (ISS) assesses emotional components, such as enjoyment and excitement, and value components, such as importance, usefulness, or practicality. Items were ranked by students on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). Reliability was found to be high (pretest Chronbach’s α = .91; posttest Chronbach’s α = .89). History Epistemic Emotions Measure. Emotions that relate to the student experience in history class include class related emotions (Pekrun et al., 2002) and learning-related emotions, REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 41 41 such as topic emotions and epistemic emotions (Broughton et al., 2011). While the types of emotions are certainly related on some level, the focus of this study will be on epistemic emotions as they pertain to the process of conceptual change. Research on emotions has noted that while positive emotions are generally good motivators for critical thinking, creativity, elaboration and self-regulating strategies (Broughton et al., 2011; Pekrun et al., 2002), negative emotions, such as confusion, may occur and help processing when dealing with discrepant information, as the individual tries to accommodate new conceptions into prior schemas (Broughton et al., 2011; Limón & Carretero, 1998). Thus, the students completed an Epistemic Emotions Scale adapted from the Emotions about Pluto’s Reclassification Survey (Broughton et al., 2011) and Heddy and Sinatra (2013) who followed similar thinking to develop the Evolution Emotions Survey (Heddy & Sinatra, 2013). The scale specifically measured how students in each cluster felt about the concept they studied, including eight items (anxious, curious, confused, interested, surprised, frustrated, enjoying, fearful) with a 5-point Likert scale from “not at all” to “very strongly.” Interviews Teacher and focus group interviews were used to gather additional data about student TE. This qualitative data was triangulated with each quantitative measure to increase the external validity of each measure. Student focus groups from each classroom, both treatment and control, had four to six students, randomly selected, who met during the class period in an adjacent classroom or library for up to 30 minutes. This totaled to six focus group interviews. The interview was designed to elicit student reflections on the use of the concept of the role of the President (liberty or federalism), how the class changed the way the student perceived the role of the President, and how their value for the idea of the role of the President changed. For example, the first question, “Were you able to use what you learned about the role of the President (liberty REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 42 42 or federalism) when you weren’t in history class? Explain when, where and how often.” Additionally there were three teacher interviews designed to understand teacher perceptions about student TE outcomes and implementation of TTEH. The interviews were recorded digitally, transcribed and hand coded for components of TE: motivated use, expansion of perception, experiential value, as well as conceptual change. Each of the components was assigned a color, useful for detecting thematic patterns in the qualitative data. Classroom Observations Understanding how teachers interpret and implement TTEH provides data not only about the efficacy of the implementation, but also innovations brought by the teacher. This included observing benefits and challenges of implementation. To gather this data, there was one in person observation in each class for both conditions. The observation occurred on the same day for both conditions at each school in order to provide a control of conditions. Data from classroom observations will be made using the classroom observation protocol (see Appendix F). This final source of data was triangulated with the quantitative measures to increase external validity as well as potentially shed light on some of Pugh’s (2010) questions for further research. Procedures Table 1 shows the timeline of the instrument administration and the quasi-experimental intervention. Details of these activities follow the table. Table 1 Schedule of instrument administration and instructional activities Activity Duration Preinstruction instrument administration • Transformative Experience in History Measure (TEHM) • Conceptual Change Measure • Situational and Individual Interest Surveys • Epistemic Emotions Survey Quasi-experimental phase One class period REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 43 43 • Treatment group: Teaching for Transformative Experience in History (TTEH) model • Control group: Normal idea-based instruction • Classroom observation Postinstruction instrument administration • Transformative Experience in History Measure (TEHM) • Conceptual Change Measure • Situational and Individual Interest Surveys • Epistemic Emotions Survey • Student focus group interviews • Teacher interview Six to ten class periods One class period One class period for instruments One class period for focus groups One half-hour meeting with instructor Professional Development Given the aforementioned behavioral, cognitive and affective outcomes desired for students, the following steps were taken for professional development: Step 1. A few weeks prior to the study, I met with each participating teacher to discuss her plan for the course and proposed unit for the experiment. This included outlining the types of knowledge outcomes using Understanding by Design (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005), a common pedagogical planning tool, which includes central concepts of the unit, key factual knowledge that students will need to know in order to make sense of conceptual knowledge and an examination of the summative assessments the teachers intend to use at the unit. Specific attention was given to the construction of the assessment, especially each level of a 4-point rubric for conceptual knowledge. Step 2. Once a history concept was identified, the teacher reflected on his or her own TEs with that concept and any conceptual change that may have occurred for that teacher over time. For example, for the study at Diego Rivera High School, the teacher reflected on her experience with learning about the branches of government, and specifically the degree of power and authority granted to the Executive branch. With the help of the researcher, the teacher considered REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 44 44 how she was initially able to use, notice or apply that concept outside of the classroom (motivated use), how that experience changed the way she looked at the world (expansion of perception) and what value she developed for that idea (experiential value). This process helped prepare the teacher to identify opportunities for scaffolding student reseeing, as well as modeling for students the process and value that was derived from the TE. Step 3. With specific instances of TE and conceptual change in mind, the teacher learned the TTEH instructional strategy, which was then layered onto the normal curriculum. TTEH included modeling for the students, the teacher’s personal TE with the concept(s), encouragement on a daily basis for student TE, and brief daily independent and group reflection (including student journals) and discussion. Step 4. A specific class session was purposefully selected for an observation of both conditions. The classroom audio recording will provide data about teacher language, as well as student comments. In addition, the researcher will conduct the observation protocol during purposefully selected class session. This form of data will be useful to capture nonverbal, spatial or visible aspects of the class context or interpersonal relationships. TTEH Condition The selected treatment group for each school site received the TTEH model which included the following elements to promote transformative experience: (a) the teacher modeled how she has experienced thinking about the concept in her life and how that has shaped her thinking about society and history, (b) students were guided to plan how they could notice and re-see concepts in diverse contexts in the classroom (this was predicted to increase student self- efficacy for the task), c) teachers provided encouragement for students to explore using the concept in their life outside of the classroom (e.g. this could include using or seeing the role of the President expressed in literature, songs, TV, movies, conversations with family, etc.), (d) REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 45 45 students completed a daily written reflection about how he or she used the concept, how it changed their perception of something in their normal experience and how their value for that concept may have changed, (e) students had a brief daily discussion with a peer, small group or whole class about their individual experience with the concept. Prior to Day 1, of the unit of study, each of the measures was administered to both treatment and control groups, including a demographics survey. The following are specific steps the teachers followed in order to effectively implement the treatment. Each step as organized by “Day” in order to give an approximate timeline for the intervention. The primary objective of Day 1 was for students to unpack the primary concept(s), questions and objectives of the unit, including that they will be able to more often use the idea in their daily lives. The teacher shared with students that they would be expected to keep a UCV (Use, Change, Value) Journal nightly, and they will be asked to participate in a daily “Show & Tell” relating their journal entries. It was recommended that the concepts be framed as essential questions (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005) that are open-ended questions challenging the student to use and explore the concept from multiple angles, e.g. “How should we judge the President?” The teacher was also asked to talk about her own personal experience thinking about the concept, e.g. for the role of the President, the teacher could make specific reference to who the President was when she started to think about the role, why she cared to think about and evaluate that President, and how she began to think about the role differently and interpret the opinions of others. For example, the teacher could talk about how she perceived President Clinton when she was young, how much power and authority she assumed him to have and how that compares to how she sees the role of President Obama today. By comparing specific issues like education or health care reform, the teacher could illustrate that depending on the issue, the President has varying levels of authority and power. The teacher can also be clear as to why being able to re- REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 46 46 see the role of the President as valuable. For example, she may express that being able to think about whether or not the President has authority on a specific issue, and to what extent, help her realize who else may be responsible and how she may even be able to influence the policy at a local level. Day 1 also included making sure that students understood and could articulate the objective of the intervention, i.e. especially, how it would help them see the world around them differently and how that, in turn, would increase the value they have for that concept. In short, the teachers made the UCV acronym clear for students: How can I use this concept? How does it change the way I see my surroundings? And why is it of value? Making this explicit was the framing process outlined earlier that helped ensure that the work unique to the intervention was stated clearly so that students would be better able to understand and take ownership of it early on in the unit. On Day 2 the students were able to apply UCV in class with sources provided by the teacher. For example, it was suggested to the teacher that after learning more about the role of the President vis-à-vis the whole political process, students could be given an activity to observe a video of interviews with citizens about their thoughts about how President Obama was doing prior to the 2012 elections. Students could be asked to pay attention to how interviewees were thinking about the role of the President. Students could also be given an op-ed talking about President Obama’s performance. Students could then practice applying their understanding the role of the President, followed by a discussion based on UCV. The primary objective of Day 3 was to help students prepare to have a TE with the idea of the concept. To accomplish this the teacher needed to create a space for students to individually and collectively brainstorm places where they may re-see the concept. Independent brainstorming was recommended to help students prepare opportunities to use the concept. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 47 47 Students could then work in small groups or as a class to generate a longer list. The teacher would be ready to offer ideas, in case students did not arrive at it independently. Ideas could include: the neighborhood of the school or students’ home, TV/movies, music, or the students’ homes. Finally, students then learned about the UCV Journal assignment. At some point before the next class, students are asked to record in a journal their response to the following questions: 1) Where did I look or how did I try to use the concept? 2) How did it change the way I see that thing, place, situation? 3) How is that valuable to me? Day 4 was planned as the first opportunity to hear student responses. For the first 5 minutes of class, it was recommended that the teacher ask students to share their UCV Journal entry with a partner. Then in a show and tell style discussion, the teacher would then have students share with the whole class their personal experience, or that of their partner. It was recommended that the teacher document the unique experiences on a chart with three columns Use, Change and Value. Day 5 onward the teacher was encouraged to begin class with the UCV Show and Tell before moving on to the course content. If the teacher were to notice that individuals were having difficulty with the UCV assignment, she was urged to confer with the student individually. Control Group. As was previously mentioned, each of the classrooms selected for the study utilized teaching methods that engaged students with the same history concepts presented in the treatment group. During the study, the teachers employed strategies to enhance instruction that were carefully observed and compared to the TTEH model. Analysis This quasi-experimental study sought to gauge the impact of TTEH in promoting TE, conceptual change, situation interest, individual interest and epistemic emotions related to learning history by way of a mixed methods analysis (Creswell, 2009). For each topic, a repeated REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 48 48 measures analysis of variables (ANOVA) was conducted to compare conditions. Further analyses were conducted in some cases, including univariate ANOVAs to examine differences between groups at both pre and post measures, and paired-sample T-tests to measure within subject differences. The triangulation of the qualitative measures (classroom observations, teacher interviews and student focus group interviews) provided additional data for external validity. Thematic coding was based initially on theoretical categories, and subsequently on substantive categories that emerged (Maxwell, 2013, p. 108). Research Questions and Hypotheses In regard to the first research question: Do participants who experience Teaching for Transformative Experience in History (TTEH) instructional intervention for history concepts and meta-concepts report significantly higher levels of TE (use, change, value) than those who have traditional instruction? I hypothesized that participants in the treatment condition would have greater motivation to use concepts from class outside of the classroom including in other subject areas, such as English or science, leading to expanded perception of those concepts and increased experiential value. This is based on prior research showing the effects of TE (Heddy & Sinatra, 2013). In regard to the second research question: Do participants who experience TTEH instruction demonstrate greater conceptual change than those in the control? I hypothesized that students would be more motivated to engage with concepts in their daily lives leading to greater conceptual change due to the fact that TTEH utilizes an experience-centered pedagogy. In regard to the third research question: Does TTEH influence situational interest and academic emotions more than control? Based on prior research, I hypothesized that the TTEH model would both trigger and maintain situational interest for students due to the fact that the REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 49 49 individual would be interacting with his or her socio-emotional-cultural environment (Hidi & Renninger, 2006). Students were predicted to have increased positive emotions due to increased participation and engagement (Pekrun et al., 2002; Pekrun & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2012), however I predicted that students would experience negative epistemic emotions at times when dealing with confusion from attempts to use conceptual or meta-conceptual lenses to examine their own experience in the world (Broughton et al., 2011; Limón & Carretero, 1998). REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 50 50 CHAPTER FOUR RESULTS Data Screening and Descriptive Statistics Table 2 shows the means and standard deviations for TE, conceptual change, and interest surveys at pretest and posttest for each school by condition. Due to my observations of TTEH implementation differences between sites during the study, individual school data is presented in order to understand relevant differences between school sites. All data screening techniques, descriptive statistics and advanced statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS version 22 software. The range of possible summed mean scores for the TTEH scale was 0-120, for CC measure they were 0-12, for the SIS they were 0-72, and for the IIS they were 0-48. Table 2: Descriptive Statistics Means and Standard Deviations By School and Condition Pre to Post for TE, Conceptual Change (CC) and Situational and Individual Interest Surveys (SIS, IIS) (N=88). University High Huntington Prep Diego Rivera Statistic Treatment Control Treatment Control Treatment Control TTEH(pre) 70.38(19.14) 78.90(17.07) 55.62(23.82) 52.64(19.64) 73.26(17.74) 71.93(11.86) TTEH(post) 88.84(14.99) 88.90(9.87) 68.93(19.82) 74.92(14.77) 82.63(20.77) 76.73(14.88) CC(pre) 4.69(1.10) 4.72(.90) 5.31(1.77) 4.50(2.56) 5.15(2.06) 5.93(1.66) CC(post) 9.76(1.87) 7.36(2.24) 9.37(1.40) 10.00(.87) 6.00(2.33) 6.33(2.49) SIS(pre) 53.00(8.70) 57.45(10.77) 42.50(9.27) 47.42(10.78) 52.47(8.57) 47.26(5.75) SIS(post) 56.84(6.34) 54.36(5.51) 46.81(10.10) 52.14(7.50) 52.36(12.13) 49.60(8.08) IIS(pre) 35.53(7.49) 37.72(6.00) 27.50(8.00) 27.85(7.14) 32.05(8.33) 30.80(5.73) IIS(post) 37.76(4.38) 37.09(5.28) 29.06(8.62) 33.07(6.81) 34.36(9.00) 32.66(6.16) REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 51 51 Quantitative results for each research question are presented first by examining the combined data from all three school sites on TE, conceptual change, interest and epistemic emotions, and then by each school separately. A separate analysis of individual schools was conducted due to differences between the selected concepts at each school (liberty, federalism, and role of the Executive branch). Qualitative results and analyses are presented only with individual school sites due to distinct differences between schools. These results provide useful information to support interpretations of quantitative findings. Findings For All Participants Transformative Experience Findings To address the first research question, “Do participants who experience TTEH instruction demonstrate greater Transformative Experience (use, change, value) than those in the control?” a repeated measures ANOVA was used comparing time (pre- to post test on the TE measure) as the within-subjects factor and group (treatment and control) as the between-subjects factor. A Box’s M test for unequal group sizes indicated that our assumption of equality of the variance– covariance matrices was met (Box’s M = 5.45, p = .150). Box’s M suggests that results are non- robust if significant at the .001 level (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001). The results of the repeated measures ANOVA showed no significant differences between conditions, (treatment pretest M = 66.60, SD = 21.40, control pretest M = 67.10, SD = 19.42, treatment posttest M = 79.75, SD = 20.35, control posttest M = 79.45, SD = 14.58); F (1, 86) = .041, p = .840). However, there was a main effect of time (F (1, 86) = 15.28, p < .001), showing that all students experienced significant change over time. Conceptual Change Findings To address the second research question, Do participants who experience TTEH instruction demonstrate greater conceptual change than those in the control? a repeated REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 52 52 measures ANOVA was conducted. A Box’s M test for unequal group sizes indicated that the assumption of equality of the variance–covariance matrices was met (Box’s M = 2.59, p = .470). The repeated measures ANOVA did not show significant differences between conditions (treatment pretest M = 5.08, SD = 1.73, control pretest M = 5.10, SD = 1.95, treatment posttest M = 8.14, SD = 2.59, control posttest M = 7.90, SD = 2.52); F(1, 86) = .154, p = .695. The main effect of time was significant (F (1, 86) = 6.83, p = .011), showing all students experienced significant growth. Interest Findings To address the third question, Does TTEH influence situational interest, individual interest and epistemic emotions more than the control? a repeated measures ANOVA was conducted. A Box’s M test for unequal group sizes indicated that our assumption of equality of the variance–covariance matrices was met (Box’s M = 7.89, p = 0.53). Results of a repeated measures ANOVA showed no significant differences (pretest treatment M = 49.29, SD = 9.92, control M = 50.12, SD = 10.06, posttest treatment group M = 51.72, SD = 10.71, control group M = 51.80, SD = 7.35); F(1, 86) = .147, p = .703. Results for the main effect of time were significant (F (1, 86) = 7.42, p = .008). For the Individual Interest Scale there were no significant differences between conditions, (treatment pretest, M = 31.47, SD = 8.45, control M = 31.67, SD = 7.34, treatment posttest, M = 33.52, SD = 8.46, control group M = 34.02, SD = 6.31); F(1, 86) = .068, p = .794. Results for the main effect were significant (F (1, 86) = 15.47, p < .001), showing all students experienced significant growth. Epistemic Emotions Findings To address the emotions component of the third question, Does TTEH influence situational interest, individual interest and epistemic emotions more than the control? epistemic REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 53 53 emotions were independently analyzed using a repeated measures ANOVA. First, a Box’s M test for unequal group sizes indicated that our assumption of equality of the variance–covariance matrices was met (Box’s M = 6.22, p = .109). The repeated measures ANOVA showed significant differences between conditions for the emotion of interest (pretest treatment group M = 4.35, SD = 1.29; control group M = 4.83, SD = .958, and posttest treatment group M = 4.37, SD = 1.16, control group M = 4.35, SD = 1.00); F(1, 86) = 4.11, p = .046, η 2 = .046. The effect size was small. The analysis showed that the treatment group had significantly higher self-reported interest when asked to think about the designated concept, (e.g. liberty, federalism, or role of the executive branch). University High Results Individual school findings were examined due to potential issues with treatment intervention fidelity at Huntington Prep, as well as differences between concepts at each school site. Therefore the results were analyzed separately by school. Transformative Experience Findings To address the first research question, Do participants who experience TTEH instruction demonstrate greater Transformative Experience (use, change, value) than those in the control? a repeated measures ANOVA was conducted. A Box’s M test for unequal group sizes indicated that the assumption of equality of the variance–covariance matrices was met (Box’s M = 2.89, p = .456). Then a repeated measures ANOVA was conducted comparing time (pre- to post test on the Transformative Experience measure) as the within-subjects factor and group (treatment and control) as the between-subjects factor. The results of the repeated measures ANOVA showed no significant differences between conditions, (treatment pretest M = 70.38, SD = 19.14, control pretest M = 78.90, SD = 17.07, treatment posttest M = 88.84, SD = 14.99, control posttest M = REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 54 54 88.90, SD = 9.87), F(1, 22) = 1.08, p = .306. Results for the main effect of time demonstrated significant growth from pretest to posttest (F (1, 22) = 11.72, p = .003). Conceptual Change Findings On the measure of conceptual change for liberty the treatment condition outperformed the control condition, demonstrating statistically significant differences (treatment pretest M = 4.69, SD = 1.10, control pretest M = 4.72, SD = .90, treatment posttest M = 9.76, SD = 1.87, control posttest M = 7.36, SD = 2.24; F(1, 22) = 7.97 , p = .011, η 2 = .296). This result shows that the treatment experienced significantly greater conceptual change than did the control group. Further, the effect size was large, suggesting that the TTEH intervention was a key determinate of conceptual change. To further investigate the nature of the interaction, univariate analyses of pretests for both conditions confirmed there were no significant differences prior to the intervention, pretest F (1,22) = .007, p =.934. However, posttest univariate analysis showed significant differences, F (1,22) = 8.170, p = .009. This verifies that significant differences of conceptual change were found after the intervention. To further investigate growth made by each group on the conceptual change measure, t tests were used. Results of t tests showed significant scores for the treatment, t (13) = -8.71, p < .001, and the control, t (11) = -4.45, p = .001. These results suggest that in addition to the treatment significantly outperforming the control, both groups benefited from instruction, performing well on the conceptual change measure for liberty. Situational and Individual Interest Findings A repeated measures ANOVA was conducted on the Situational Interest measure. Then a Box’s M test for unequal group sizes indicated that our assumption of equality of the variance– covariance matrices was met (Box’s M = 2.80, p = .470). Significant findings were noted (treatment pretest M = 53.00, SD = 8.70; control pretest M = 57.45, SD = 10.77, treatment REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 55 55 posttest M = 56.84, SD = 6.34, control posttest M = 54.36, SD = 5.51); F (1, 22) = 4.658, p = .048, η 2 = .173. In this case, while the treatment group demonstrated significant gains over time, the control group lost ground. The large effect size suggests the TTEH intervention contributed to situational interest. For the Individual Interest Scale there were no significant differences between conditions according to a repeated measures ANOVA. A Box’s M test for unequal group sizes indicated that our assumption of equality of the variance–covariance matrices was met (Box’s M = 2.46, p = .528). The repeated measures ANOVA showed no significant differences (treatment pretest M = 35.53, SD = 7.49; control pretest M = 37.72, SD = 6.00, treatment posttest M = 37.76, SD = 4.38, control posttest M = 37.09, SD = 5.28); F(1, 22) = 1.88, p = .184. Results for the main effect of time were not significant (F (1, 22) = 1.68, p = .208). Epistemic Emotions Findings To address the emotions component of third question, Does TTEH influence situational interest, individual interest and epistemic emotions more than the control? epistemic emotions were independently analyzed using a repeated measures ANOVA. First, a Box’s M test for unequal group sizes indicated that our assumption of equality of the variance–covariance matrices was met (Box’s M = 2.72, p = .483). The repeated measures ANOVA showed significant differences for interest emotions (treatment pretest M = 4.77, SD = .725; control pretest M = 5.27, SD = .786), treatment posttest M = 4.92, SD = .760, control posttest M = 4.64, SD = .505); F(1, 22) = 9.51, p = .006, η 2 = .312. The analysis showed significant differences in interest emotions between conditions when asked to think about liberty. It is also noted that there was a large effect size, suggesting that the TTEH intervention was a predictor of interest emotions with the concept of liberty. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 56 56 Qualitative Interpretation of Student Interviews I included qualitative measures, student and teacher focus group interviews, in the methodology of this study to support the triangulation of findings to answer the first research question, Do participants (teachers and students) who experience the TTEH instructional intervention for history concepts report significantly higher levels of TE (use, change, value) than those in a control group who have traditional instruction? I used thematic analysis coding (Maxwell, 2013) to find and triangulate or crystallize statements that provided rich data on the phenomenon of teaching and learning for TE with selected concepts. After I transcribed each of the interviews, I used a color-coding process to identify motivated use, expansion of perception, experiential value and conceptual change. This scheme allowed me to see thematic patterns and differences between conditions. Focus groups of five students from both conditions were randomly selected for interviews. As predicted, there were notable differences between focus group interviews. Students in treatment group were very comfortable discussing how the concept of liberty, was used or applied to their daily experiences, and how that changed the way they looked at the world. Each of the five participants in the treatment condition focus group was engaged in the discussion and offered different perspectives, including ideas about what helped the process of applying concepts outside of class. The control condition had positive comments about their experience with the unit in general, but the conversation tended to gravitate back to classroom assignments and was less focused on liberty. Comments jumped between concepts from the unit, including balance of powers, federalism and constitutionalism. When asked about how they were able to apply what they learned outside of the classroom, how it has changed the way they look at the world, or how they value the concept more, student responses were less frequent. Students tended to refer back to the classroom; for example, to a simulation debate activity and the final REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 57 57 project, which both provided creative ways for students to synthesize conceptual and factual knowledge from the unit. The following paragraphs will analyze how students in both conditions responded to question of use, change and value. Students in the treatment condition eagerly described a number of examples of how they were able to apply what they were learning about liberty outside the class. Here are three consecutive contributions from three different students: Student 1 said, “It helped me in my elections class (a different class) because we were talking about current events...we had to argue things about if the Electoral College is good or not, and liberty and individual liberties are kind of an argument you could make.” Then a more general example from Student 2, “I think kinda similar, but also just like in our daily lives, like, going home and hearing stories or talking to other people, you start to recognize real life situations, and things that I would have never noticed before as liberty, things that I just kind of started thinking about as I went home over the weekend and stuff.” Finally Student 3, Yeah, we have to choose primary sources off of news articles and one of the ones that I chose, like outside of class to talk about and show how it like connects to liberty, was about the debt ceiling for the government shutting down and it just made think (sic) about things in a different way, and like, made me question, like, the ideas of the separations of powers, which is what we had learned about previously in class about government; and basically like how that the Constitution states that every branch has equal power, but when it comes down to things like this that are so crucial to our everyday lives, it's like if the President doesn't have the power to do this, then how, is he supposed to basically protect our country if he can't. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 58 58 Not only were students very eager to share that they were able to use or apply liberty, Student 2 and 3 included a self-awareness that they developed an ability to apply the concept in a new way, in other words, the process helped expand their perception, reseeing and valuing the concept. For example, noticing that the debt ceiling was a policy action that affects liberty and is connected to a political balance of powers, a concept learned in a previous unit. The student implies that she was previously unaware of these connections. Although the comments in the case of student one and three are undeveloped, they contribute to a larger picture presented in the focus group, which suggested that the students had developed increased willingness to apply the concept outside of class and connect it to other background knowledge. Student 4 mentioned that the journal entries spawned discussion of positive liberty, “...We didn’t really get in to positive liberty until we were talking about our journal entries and someone brought up like abortion and how there's...someone's article was like how they were going to make a rule that if you're protesting at abortion clinics, you have to be this far away from it...I guess it like offends the people getting abortions...but then we were talking about how like it's positive liberty for the people that are protesting cause they think that their...” Student 3 interrupts, “Negative liberty. I think you're just getting...” Student 1 jumps in, “Yes it's negative liberty cause they don't have constraints or control, but then for the person going to get it the baby aborted that's positive liberty, right?” The emergent discussion prompted two important reflections to provide rich qualitative data. First, student four was willing and eager to jump into the discussion and share a new example of when she first applied positive liberty. She shared an example that helped generate a lively discussion in class about positive and negative liberty. To this extent, it is useful to recognize the process students must go through in order to confidently find and share the application of their learning. Second, the student made a mistake, REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 59 59 confusing positive and negative liberty. This moment conveyed the importance of process and peer support in developing conceptual clarity. The group was clearly comfortable and quickly able to help steer the conversation to a correct application of the concept. Students in the treatment condition also noted the initial challenge of applying liberty outside the class. Student 4 stated, “I feel like all of us when we looked for liberty we couldn’t find it...and after we learned more...it came to us easily and so unexpectedly because like our knowledge like broadened like our perspective on it.” Other students added, “I just looked for a lack of liberty...,” or “I did the exact thing, I would think about negative liberty because I found it easier to look for negative liberty.” Finally Student 3 chimed in, “...and then like somebody in our class talked about something really interesting about like smoking.” The group collectively remembered with nods and “yeahs.” Student 3 finished, “...In restaurants and...there’s a broad spectrum, there’s you know like huge national things, and then there are more like, the smoking in restaurants isn’t as huge but definitely a greater thing within their life.” This was another example of the group conversation moving from examples of negative and positive liberty. In this case, the student noted that issues of liberty can be seen at a more local level like policies on smoking in restaurants, or at a federal level with issues like raising the debt ceiling. To further understand the students’ process of initially attempting to apply the liberty to contexts beyond the classroom, the researcher asked specifically how it started and how it changed during the course of the unit. Students unanimously agreed that they are “better at it now.” Student 1 commented, “It served its purpose in like drilling.” Another unanimous “yeah.” Student 5 commented, “Where before it would take us longer, it would take us like ten minutes thinking of an example. Now I think if you were to give us like an article, an actual example we’d be able to find it really quickly.” Although students mentioned that they realized from talking with peers in the other condition that the journal was an extra requirement that they could REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 60 60 have done less (this will be addressed in the next chapter), they seemed more comfortable with the behavior of application. In control with the control group, when asked how they were able to use the concepts learned in class, student four shared, “I’d say...sometimes we were looking at articles and current events and I was able to see how it effects kind of today.” Student 2 added, “Yeah, it also connects to what is our central government and national government have the power to do versus what we as states have control over.” I asked more about the specific activity that led to that application. Student 2 shared, “Umm, we were talking for example – drug use – we were talking how it’s a national law, but California legalized marijuana...um but it’s technically under the national law it’s illegal....” There were two other examples that followed, one regarding a noticing the second amendment when watching MSNBC and another about an article from class in which there was an effort to establish a state religion in North Carolina. The examples above came from a current events activity included during the unit of study. Finally a student three jumped into the conversation adding, “Just talking about the liberty thing, now I can think of something, like I dunno, like kinda something every once in a while will pop in my head – oh that’s liberty. I don’t have anything specific right now.” When I asked about whether this was important or valuable student five added, “Yes, I think they’re important to us because, they...that’s kind of like why people come to the U.S. to have liberty, and to have to have freedom, and freedom of speech and all that kind of stuff. So I feel like we use it in our everyday lives, so if we took all those things away from us it’d be different.” For the most part, the connections drawn by the students tended to relate different concepts of government from class activities. Although there were two comments about liberty, both were relatively naïve conceptions and applications, focusing more on negative liberty. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 61 61 When asked if there was anything that the teacher did that especially helped the students apply concepts from class, changed the way they looked at the world around them, or value those concepts, the students became more animated and shared, “Yes – so we did a debate where each one of us were...we were categorized as federalist or anti-federalist so as...” Student 1 said, “I was James Madison.” Student four jumped in, “George Clinton.” Student 2, “Alexander Hamilton.” Student 3 shared, ...So we like got to research our characters and read about them. It was really, really intense. It took hours! So we had a debate and we had to question each other and like debate, argue and so I think that really...what was it about – the articles of confederation versus the constitution. So that definitely made me understand it better to hear everyone’s views. And then also apply, like oh, people today do this too! Like the presidential debates and stuff. In this case the conceptual understanding was more about federalism than it was about liberty. This very lively contribution to the discussion helped confirm that the simulation debate activity, as well as the final project mentioned later in the interview, offered both groups effective instruction that was interesting and engaging. Student 4 mentioned that her final project allowed her to do a podcast in which she was Mr. Articles of Confederation and her partner was Mr. Constitution. “So that was cool because it’s not like you’re reading something from a textbook, you’re actually putting it into play. Undoubtedly, this effective pedagogical strategy allowed for student choice, increasing engagement and allowing students to synthesize ideas from the unit in a creative way. When looking at both conditions, there is ample evidence to suggest that students were all interested and engaged and consequently would self-report high scores on quantitative measures for TE, situational and individual interest, and epistemic emotions. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 62 62 Qualitative Interpretation of Teacher Interviews The teacher, Maria (pseudonym), shared her perspective on how students from her class engaged with the concept of liberty beyond the classroom provided valuable data regarding how students responded to the intervention as well as differences between conditions. Overall, Maria felt that the treatment condition was able to articulate an understanding of negative liberty, and as she predicted moved to a more sophisticated understanding of positive liberty. She added, “I think probably that the TE group, some less confident students were able to do more of that than the less confident students in that [control] class. Maria proceeded to share a story of one student who greatly benefited from the intervention, I would say, there’s a particular student who pops out as one...who had a more transformative experience. She was in the experimental group...and she was the one who came in with the Obamacare analogy and...in that discussion started us on the road to articulating a difference between positive and negative liberty. Part of the reason I think, the reason she strikes me, is that first of all she was more excited about it than other kids in the classroom. She was also pretty quick to try and use the positive liberty concept in subsequent classes like she wanted to bring it up a couple times and I remember why it was important to her. She’s a good student but I don’t think she’s a superstar. I don’t think she experiences as a top of the class kind of student and so I think part of what was meaningful to her was to be the source of this class breakthrough. Um I think that that was really meaningful for her. Later in the interview the teacher said, “The TE approach helped us focus much more tightly on the essential questions...I really appreciate the explicit direction to apply what they’re REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 63 63 learning outside of class on their own...and changing the way they see the relationship between the past and the present. I think is really valuable to history education and part of what a history education is supposed to do, right?” When asked how the students were able to use the concept outside of class the teacher shared, “I feel more confident that the TE group was able to do that - principally because of the conversations they would have in the first ten minutes of class. The teacher added that the students would say things like, “My parents were talking about the [Federal government] shutdown and I was asking questions about it and it made me think about liberty.” While Maria implicitly acknowledges that she does not know much about how students in the control condition were applying the concept beyond the classroom, this raises an important point for discussion. Even generally effective classroom pedagogy does not provide this type of assessment, which is necessary for achieving a goal like TE. The following question posed to the teacher explored the experiential value students reported from applying liberty outside the classroom. “I can tell that they were using it. And I can tell that they’re ideas about it changed...But whether they value them isn’t as clear to me. I mean when they were doing the journaling, early on, I saw this tendency to you know to say something for the change category and something for the value category even if it was fairly shallow.” These comments echoed the conversation with the student TE focus group. Students and their teacher expressed that thinking about value, at first, felt contrived. It was revealed in later questions that the teacher only provided modeling for value one time and referred back to that story once. Further discussion on the limitations of this intervention and implications for future practice will be discussed in the next chapter. Classroom Observation Findings The primary objective of a classroom observation was to better understand the logistical aspects of the TTEH intervention with a control to the control condition. The treatment group REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 64 64 classroom observation at University Prep revealed that the implementation of TTEH was partially faithful to the professional development training. The observed class period was toward the end of the quasi-experiment and students had already begun UCV journals outside of class. At the outset of class, the teacher asked if any of the students wanted to share from their journals. There was not specific direction to share with a partner or small group, nor was there direction to share what students noticed or how they used the concept of liberty. During the observed lesson, a number of students volunteered to share examples of their use, indicating some level of self- efficacy with the task. One student brought up the example of policies limiting smoking in restaurants and made a connection to liberty. During the conversation there were a few misconceptions that were addressed through informal conversation with the teacher. I did not observe teacher modeling of UCV or the actual student journals. Observation of the control group classroom did not indicate any cross-contamination. At the beginning of the lesson, students got out copies of the Constitution and the teacher asked them about the idea of tension between ideals and interests. The conversation gravitated towards a discussion of federalism and the roles of different branches and bodies of the government. Based on student focus group and teacher interviews, as well as the classroom observation, it was apparent that students in the treatment condition were better able to articulate use, change and value for the concept of liberty, while the control condition tended to refer to specific classroom activities when prompted to think about liberty. Huntington Prep Results Transformative Experience Findings To address the first research question, Do participants who experience TTEH instruction demonstrate greater Transformative Experience (use, change, value) than those in the control? a repeated measures ANOVA was used comparing time (pre- to post test on the Transformative REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 65 65 Experience measure) as the within-subjects factor and group (treatment and control) as the between-subjects factor. A Box’s M test for unequal group sizes indicated that our assumption of equality of the variance–covariance matrices was met (Box’s M = 3.00, p = .428). The results of the repeated measures ANOVA were not significant, (pretest treatment pretest M = 55.62, SD = 23.82, control M = 52.64, SD = 19.64; treatment posttest M = 68.93, SD = 19.82, control M = 74.92, SD = 14.77), F (1, 28) = 2.605, p = .119. Results for the main effect of time were significant (F (1, 28) = 9.18, p = .006), showing all students experienced significant growth. Conceptual Change Findings On the measure of conceptual change for federalism the treatment condition demonstrated statistically significant differences favoring the control, (control pretest M = 4.50, SD = 2.56; treatment pretest M = 5.31, SD = 1.77; control posttest M = 10.00, SD = .87; treatment posttest M = 9.37, SD = 1.40) F(1, 28) = 5.45, p = .028, η 2 = .179. For both pre and posttest univariate analyses, there were not significant results, pretest F (1,28) = 1.03, p =.317, posttest F (1,28) = 2.05, p = .163. However on t tests, both groups showed significant gains, control t = -10.35, p = .000 and control t = -8.21, p = .000. Again, presumably due to effective instruction, both groups performed well on the measure of conceptual change, but in this case, the control significantly outperformed the treatment. This finding was likely due to a lack of treatment intervention fidelity caused by an imbalance of historical case study content and potential pedagogical cross-contamination. Further analysis is presented in the following qualitative section, however. Situational and Individual Interest Findings According to a repeated measures ANOVA, there were no significant findings noted from the Situational Interest Likert Scale measure. A Box’s M test for unequal group sizes indicated that our assumption of equality of the variance–covariance matrices was met (Box’s M REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 66 66 = 3.79, p = .321). The repeated measures ANOVA pretest results showed (treatment M = 42.50, SD = 9.27; control M = 47.42, SD = 10.78), and posttest scores (treatment group M = 46.81, SD = 10.10); (control group M = 52.14, SD = 7.50); F(1, 28) = .031, p = .861. Results for the main effect of time were significant (F (1, 28) = 5.26, p = .030), showing that both groups experienced significant growth. For the Individual Interest Scale the treatment condition did not show significant results (treatment pretest M = 27.50, SD = 8.00; control pretest M = 27.85, SD = 7.14, treatment posttest M = 29.06, SD = 8.62, control posttest M = 33.07, SD = 6.81); F(1, 28) = .946, p = .311. Results for the main effect of time were significant (F (1, 28) = 9.46, p = .005), showing both groups experienced significant growth. Epistemic Emotions Findings To address the third question, “Does TTEH influence situational interest, individual interest and epistemic emotions more than the control?” A repeated measures ANOVA was used to better understand the relationship of each of the epistemic emotions with the conceptual change measure of federalism. A Box’s M test for unequal group sizes indicated that our assumption of equality of the variance–covariance matrices was met (Box’s M = 3.85, p = .314). There was a significant difference between groups with interest emotions for federalism. The results of the repeated measures ANOVA did show a statistically significant interaction in interest emotions scores pretest to posttest favoring the treatment condition (treatment pretest M = 3.44, SD = 1.31, control pretest M = 4.71, SD = 1.06; treatment posttest M = 3.81, SD = 1.16, control posttest M = 4.29, SD = .914, F (1, 28) = 5.107, p = .032, η 2 = .164. The effect size was large, indicating the TTEH intervention was a predictor of increased epistemic interest emotions for federalism. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 67 67 Qualitative Interpretation of Student Interviews During the focus group interview, students in the control condition continued to mention a reading packet that included several historical case studies focused on issues involving federalism. They explained that while the textbook did provide information, the articles really helped them understand federalism better. When asked about whether they have been able to notice the concept outside of class, whether in books, TV, movies or even other classes, students came back to a class experience, “I liked the stories, the true stories of what happened to these people and the not just straight on facts about who did what, just the actual person telling you what happened.” Another student responded, “She showed us this video clip of when of partially when the Little Rock Nine made it into the school and I like, it was like really helpful.” A third student commented, “I thought the examples like the Little Rock Nine, I mean I feel like they were a bit random, but they were good examples.” These representative comments from the control condition show that students were confident about the concept of federalism and were able to cite the articles as examples, but had more difficulty identifying how they independently noticed or used the concept beyond the class. The comment from the third student seems to suggest that it may have been challenging for some students to recognize the connection between case studies and their life outside of class. In regard to how the unit changed the way students think about history, one student said, “I just realized how complex our government really is. I thought it was pretty basic, you know you do this, you do that, go be good, and then like...But there's actually a lot more complexity and like conflict and tension to it that like you need to keep balanced otherwise this totally wouldn't work at all. So maintaining that is a lot harder than I expected for it to be.” Statements along these lines revealed instruction for the control condition was effective in developing conceptual sophistication. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 68 68 The treatment condition focus group noted at the beginning of our conversation that there were a few differences they noticed about the unit. For one, they described the unit as being similar to previous units except that they had to relate the current events articles to federalism, that their teacher Sandra (pseudonym) shared a PowerPoint presentation and they were asked to reflect in writing on, “How federalism has like, changed your view on whatever you’re looking at. Something like that.” The students were clear about the effort to notice federalism, but were not as clear on the UCV journaling, as it was not a nightly routine, but introduced on a few occasions as a writing reflection. However, when asked about their value or appreciation for federalism, student two shared, “The current events that she made us relate to federalism that definitely helped, like I understood it a little bit more right when I got to read that article and see how it related to federalism.” Student one said, “Like, I think all current events articles can relate to federalism in one way or another...like indirectly or directly so it’s really easy to just, like, pick out a sentence and say this relates to federalism.” Student five responded, “Now you have to be like, okay, this has nothing to do with federalism.” Here student five is communicating that when looking at current event news articles, it still requires differentiating what is and what is not related to federalism. Student three then shared that they only had two opportunities to practice looking for the concept in current events, but it was easier the second time, “Well the first time we had to do it...I looked through a lot of articles, then the second time I was like...it was easier.” These comments support the idea that the behavior of using or noticing, requires practice and becomes more familiar with experience. Student two clearly articulated her perception of the TTEH intervention, “The experiment she did, like the projects that we did...as a group, cause everyone came up with different examples so they had like a lot of variety...Before that I really didn’t...like I had it [federalism] narrowed down to the government, but I didn’t have the connection to my own life. So with the experiment, I started noticing it around me.” REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 69 69 Overall, the treatment condition demonstrated a greater ease in discussing recognizing federalism in their daily experience outside of history class, however mostly with news. This differed from the control condition that referred frequently to the reading packet that included multiple examples of cases, like the Little Rock Nine, that involved a conflict between local, state and federal policies. Qualitative Interpretation of Teacher Interviews Overall the teacher, Sandra, felt that there was a tension between the objective of the experiment, to increase TE, and the learning of historical content. Sandra stated, “I trusted that it [TE] embed itself more in them, that they might look for it more, but they wouldn’t necessarily have as much historical knowledge to understand it...but at the same time I feel like the treatment group looks for federalism and it’s a common currency of conversation maybe in a way that’s not quite as common of currency in the class you just saw [control]. They’re [treatment] primed to look for it now.” This statement made independently from both focus group interviews supports what was learned from students. Sandra shared, “I had the treatment group write how they see federalism in groups in their lives, like sporting team or in school or whatever and then we talked about how that’s similar to the state and federal government.” The initial activities used analogies to help students in the treatment understand the concept, while the control jumped into looking at articles of historical case studies revolving around issues of federalism. While it seems fairly clear that the control benefited from learning history content connected to the central concept, it is not clear how the analogies referring to shared power structures aided the students. Similar to Maria, the teacher from University High, Sandra thought centering the unit on a concept or theme, benefited the students. “...The best thing for me as a teacher was just...teaching a really hard concept thematically. It’s not just women in American History; it’s REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 70 70 this really hard fundamental concept that will help them understand everything else.” Sandra believed that both groups really benefitted conceptually from a tight focus on a big idea like federalism. Sandra also cited writing as a key assessment tool to monitor thinking during the unit, whether done using a UCV journal or another form of reflection. Classroom Observations I was invited to observe both conditions on a Friday, which is designated as a current events day. The treatment condition was asked to focus on applying the idea of federalism to their current events. The class began with students each writing the headline of the article they selected on the whiteboard. Nearly all of the headlines were related to federalism. Then the teacher asked each student to write a question or comment about other student articles. The teacher, Sandra, then selected individual students to share observations. Following the current events activity, the teacher then asked students to write a forty to fifty word reflection on their federalism article, focusing on how the article changed their view of federalism and to what extent they value it. Following the writing exercise, there was a discussion for the remainder of the twenty minutes, reviewing student writing. The control condition followed the same format, but the teacher, Sandra, did not ask students to connect their current event article to federalism. Sandra’s responses to student articles focused mostly on connections the student could make to other content or student background knowledge. For example, a student shared that there was a three billion dollar offer to buy the technology company Snapchat. Sandra commented that there were lots of ways this connects, especially regarding privacy issues in our society at large. Overall, the treatment group was asked to apply concept, but UCV journals were not used according to the professional development model. In this case the teacher modified the journal to fit within the existing current events routine. Based on student focus group and teacher REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 71 71 interviews, as well as the classroom observation, the treatment condition seemed to experience increased TE, providing a “conversational currency” as mentioned by the teacher. However, possibly due to the short duration of the unit of study and time given to the TTEH model potentially limiting treatment group exposure to the texts, the control condition was more comfortable with the specific content presented in case study readings. The readings appear to have provided students in the control condition with better examples of federalism issues, which was both of interest to students, as well as a tool for developing conceptual understanding. Diego Rivera High Results Transformative Experience Findings To address the first research question, Do participants who experience TTEH instruction demonstrate greater Transformative Experience (use, change, value) than those in the control? a repeated measures ANOVA was used comparing time (pre- to post test on the TE measure) as the within-subjects factor and group (treatment and control) as the between-subjects factor. A Box’s M test for unequal group sizes indicated that our assumption of equality of the variance– covariance matrices was met (Box’s M = 3.11, p = .409). This means that equal variances can be assumed between conditions. The results of the repeated measures ANOVA did not show significant differences between conditions (treatment pretest M = 73.26, SD = 17.74, control pretest M = 71.93, SD = 11.86, treatment posttest M = 82.63, SD = 20.77, control posttest M = 76.73, SD = 14.88) F (1, 32) = .597, p = .446. Results for the main effect of time were significant (F (1, 32) = 4.31, p = .046). Univariate analyses were conducted based on differences of post hoc means. Results did not show significant differences between conditions at pretest but did at posttest, F(1, 32) = 5.29, p=.003, η 2 = .422. The effect size was large. The TTEH intervention did play a significant role in increasing TE in the treatment condition. This is confirmed further from paired samples t tests REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 72 72 that demonstrated significant difference for the treatment condition; treatment, t = -3.227, p = .005, while the control condition did not show, t = -1.393, p = .185. This result suggests that the treatment group reported a significant gain with transformative experience from pretest to posttest, while this did not happen with the control condition. Further analyses were conducted disaggregating TE data from a combined score to the components of use, change and value. To ensure the equal variances between conditions a Box’s M was conducted and was not significant (Box’s M = 4.295, p = .262). This means that equal variances can be assumed between conditions. For TE-Use there were no significant differences between conditions (treatment pretest M = 31.31, SD = 8.91, control pretest M = 29.73, SD = 6.43, treatment posttest M = 34.63, SD = 10.91, control posttest M = 32.06, SD = 6.47); F (1, 32) = .503, p = .484. Significant differences were found for TE-Change. To ensure the equal variances between conditions a Box’s M was conducted and was not significant (Box’s M = 1.678, p = .668). A repeated measures ANOVA showed the treatment significantly outperformed the control (treatment pretest M = 22.10, SD = 5.24, control pretest M = 22.60, SD = 3.85, treatment posttest M = 26.42, SD = 5.98, control posttest M = 23.60, SD = 5.35); F (1, 32) = 4.28, p = .047, η 2 = .118. The effect size was moderate. These results suggest that the TTEH intervention did impact student expansion of perception of the role of the Executive branch in United States government outside of the classroom. For TE-Value a Box’s M test was conducted to ensure the equal variances between conditions. Results were not significant (Box’s M = 3.733, p = .324). This means that equal variances can be assumed between conditions. There were also no significant differences between conditions using a repeated measures ANOVA (treatment pretest M = 19.84, SD = 5.16, REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 73 73 control pretest M = 19.60, treatment posttest M = 21.57, SD = 5.17, SD = 3.48, control posttest M = 21.06, SD = 4.47); F (1, 32) = .101, p = .753. Careful analysis of TE results at Diego Rivera showed an effect on TE change, which is supported by qualitative analysis below. Conceptual Change Findings To address the second research question, “Do participants who experience TTEH instruction demonstrate greater conceptual change than those in the control?” a repeated measures ANOVA was used comparing time (pretest to posttest on the conceptual change measure) as the within-subjects factor and group (treatment and control) as the between-subjects factor. To ensure the equal variances between conditions a Box’s M was conducted and was not significant (Box’s M = 1.117, p = .792). This means that equal variances can be assumed between conditions. The results of the repeated measures ANOVA revealed that the interaction between time and group were not statistically significant, treatment pretest M = 5.15, SD = 2.06, control pretest M = 5.93, SD = 1.66, treatment posttest M = 6.00, SD = 2.33, control posttest M = 6.33, SD = 2.49; F (1, 34) = .122, p = .729. Results for the main effect of time were not significant (F (1, 32) = 1.32, p = .259). Situational and Individual Interest Findings No significant findings were noted from either the Situational or Individual Interest Likert Scale measures. To ensure the equal variances between conditions a Box’s M was conducted and was not significant (Box’s M = 4.18, p = .214). This means that equal variances can be assumed between conditions. For the Situational Interest Scale, treatment pretest (treatment M = 52.47, SD = 8.57; control M = 47.26, SD = 5.75), nor did posttest scores (treatment group M = 52.36, SD = 12.13); (control group M = 49.60, SD = 8.08); F(1, 32) = .492, p = .489. This data suggests that for situational interest there were no significant differences REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 74 74 between conditions. Results for the main effect of time were not significant (F (1, 32) = .884, p = .355). To ensure the equal variances between conditions on the Individual Interest Scale, a Box’s M was conducted and was not significant (Box’s M = 7.76, p = .065). This means that equal variances can be assumed between conditions. For the Individual Interest Scale both groups demonstrated modest growth and did not present significant differences, treatment pretest (M = 32.05, SD = 8.33; control M = 30.80, SD = 5.73), nor did posttest scores (treatment group M = 34.36, SD = 9.00, control group M = 32.66, SD = 6.16); F(1, 32) = .204, p = .655. Results for the main effect of time were not significant (F (1, 32) = 1.87, p = .182). Epistemic Emotions Findings To address the third question, Does TTEH influence situational interest, individual interest and epistemic emotions more than the control? a repeated measures ANOVA was conducted to examine interest emotions. Box’s M test for unequal group sizes indicated that our assumption of equality of the variance–covariance matrices was met (Box’s M = 3.04, p = .420). The results of the repeated measures ANOVA did not show a statistically significant interaction in interest emotions scores pretest to posttest (treatment pretest M = 4.84, SD = 1.21, control pretest M = 4.60, SD = .910; treatment posttest M = 4.47, SD = 1.21, control posttest M = 4.20, SD = 1.32, F (1, 32) = 2.29, p = .782. Results for the main effect of time were not significant (F (1, 32) = 2.29, p = .140). Qualitative Interpretation of Student Interviews Students in the treatment condition focus group interview shared many examples of TE. Student one shared, “We had to see what we were learning and relate it to watching the news and hearing songs and like we see a lot of connections between what we learned and the songs.” Other students echoed that comment, revealing that the TTEH intervention was clearly presented REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 75 75 to and practiced by students. Another student shared, “I think you understand more the stuff you find...looking for things that relate to the role of the President. And when you go out and look for that stuff, you’re like ‘oh yeah, I learned this’ and I know why. If it’s right or wrong, what they’re saying.” Here the student is able to articulate how the process of noticing helped him value the concept, and in the case of the role of the President, see how misconceptions are present in our popular culture. Another student summarized, “That too, when we were researching media, I found that a lot of people really like putting the President in a bad light. Because well it’s easy to blame, they’re looking for someone to blame what’s wrong in the world, I assume so, so they choose to blame the authority figure.” Another student shared her value derived from the TTEH experience, “Well to be honest, I really didn’t care much for Congress and the President before learning about what he [the President] did and what he can and cannot do. And now that I know I can apply what decisions he makes...and how it affects everybody, not just the whole but also as it can affect individuals....” A different student shared what interested him about the process, “I think what makes it interesting is that now we can go out and in the world and like bring it back to this class. Say I saw a documentary about Columbia, and how uh some policy they make here or the war on drugs affected them in Columbia....” In this regard, students acknowledge that TTEH allows for increased engagement beyond the classroom, that in turn, enhanced the classroom experience. Overall, the treatment focus group conversation was filled with enthusiasm and praise for the teacher and activities that encouraged students to apply what they were learning outside of class and share those experiences in class with their peers. Students all commented that they feel more confident when thinking about the Executive branch of the U.S. government. The control condition focus group conversation differed considerably. Students could not identify the role of the President as a central concept for the class. Instead, students offered that REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 76 76 they were talking about Congress. When asked how this unit changed the way they think about the role of the President, only two of the five shared. One student responded, “I don’t think this class changed it, I feel like U.S. History kinda changed it more. This is kinda repeating information from U.S. History.” The other student shared, “Actually, I didn’t know what democracy means. What’s the difference between democracy and republic. I learned from this class.” This sample of students had more difficulty identifying the central goal of the class, and were not about to share and thoughts about how they are able to use the concept, how that concept changed the way they look at the world, nor how the concept is valuable. In fact, when asked directly how the ideas from this class are valuable, one student shared, “It’s not.” The comment was accompanied with laughter from the group. Although the focus group was randomly selected, it is possible that the group of five did not represent the whole class. With that said, it is noteworthy that of the five students, none were able to clearly articulate the central concepts or how they were useful beyond the classroom. Qualitative Interpretation of Teacher Interviews When interviewed about her perceptions about the experiment, the teacher, Estelle (pseudonym) explained that the TTEH intervention was challenging at first, but improved over time with adjustments to address misconceptions. Estelle shared that there was a group of students who were engaged with the UCV discussions and another group that seemed to be confused at first, leaving UCV worksheets blank. “I thought it [TTEH] was going to be really easy, like really easy. It was challenging. But it was good in showing me that the learning I was hoping for well, right away it showed me that it wasn’t happening. And then I was able to see some progress. Still not at the level I thought I would see, but it did help me see what was going on in their heads and in their understanding of these concepts and how they relate.” She referenced a phone conversation she had with the researcher. During the beginning when REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 77 77 students were confused with conspiracy theories, she shared a concern that TTEH seemed to be leading to misconceptions. During the conversation the researcher and teacher agreed that the UCV discussion were, in fact, a perfect place to directly and explicitly point out misconceptions. Estelle shared that there was a difference between conditions along these lines, “In my second period class [treatment condition], making connections and being able to speak about these connections, and whether they were accurate or not, enabled us to speak about the concepts and the connections. Whereas in my fourth period [control condition] I wasn't able to do it at all so I...knew when my kids weren't getting it, like I feel that I was getting better feedback about how my instruction was going. Umm, like I was like "okay, they're confused" or "okay, they're moving towards getting it." Whereas in my fourth period [control condition] I, I felt less clear about their understanding...and about their ability to apply their learning to current events.” Estelle saw TTEH as an important instructional strategy to help students notice and apply learning beyond the classroom, but also as an assessment tool to gage conceptual clarity and sophistication as those concepts are applied to different contexts in the lives of students. Estelle also shared that overall the experience was valuable for her, “What I was getting from like floundering through it was really valuable. I was talking about it in an instructional leadership team meeting, and I was explaining what I was doing with my second and my fourth period, and how I found it really valuable. It kind of helped me reflect on my teaching and the assumptions that I make as a teacher.” The assumptions Estelle referred to are about how students use what they learn in the classroom and how they connect it to their own experiences. For Estelle, TTEH was viewed as scaffolding for student metacognition about what they are learning. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 78 78 Classroom Observations I observed a class for both conditions toward the end of the quasi-experiment. The treatment condition began their lesson watching a current events program online. Follow that program, students were asked to complete a UCV worksheet in silence for a few minutes. The first student to volunteer shared the example of mandatory minimum sentencing laws being addressed by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. The student made the connection that the President has the authority to choose what laws to enforce. Then the teacher Estelle responded by asking how that application changed the student’s understanding and value for the idea. The student shared that he now appreciates that the President must take into consideration other issues like the War on Drugs, or other implications that a law like mandatory sentencing may have. A second student shared about news regarding the affordable care act, saying that reports suggested that some policy owners would potentially see cancellations. This made the student realize that even though it seemed that the President was promising that the Affordable Care Act would be better for everyone, some might actually experience negative consequences from the new policy. The teacher pushed the student by asking if he could see that before, and the student responded that he did not realize the extent to which the President could influence the way people think about laws. Following the UCV discussion, the class launched into a reading about the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), based on a video screened in a previous class. The reading included the role of the Congress in passing the law, the role of the President in signing the law and the Department of Justice, specifically the Drug Enforcement Agency in enforcing the law at the Federal level. The conversation examined how state and federal authorities may have different approaches to the issue, but ultimately the Executive branch can choose to enforce the law. In the control condition, REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 79 79 the group watched the same current events program and then the class then had a similar conversation as the treatment group about situations in which state authorities do not enforce the law, or where individual states have different laws, such as California. The differences in classroom observations mirrored the quantitative TE survey qualitative interview data, in which students in the treatment group were better able to notice and apply the concept to their daily lives. Furthermore, students in the treatment were able to recognize how it has changed the way they think about the role of the President. Based on student focus group and teacher interviews, as well as the classroom observation, it appeared that the treatment condition experienced a greater degree of TE and conceptual change. Furthermore, the teacher realized midway through the intervention that explicitly addressing misconceptions emerging from the TTEH intervention was helpful in facilitating conceptual change. Summary Combined school quantitative findings did not show significant results for TE, conceptual change with history concepts, SI or II, but did with interest emotions. Due to my observations of differences between teachers with the TTEH intervention, individual school analyses were conducted to better understand the findings, revealing mixed results. Due to the TTEH intervention, the treatment and control groups at University High and Huntington Prep showed evidence of TE, and at Diego Rivera, post hoc analysis revealed significant growth in TE. Focus group and teacher interviews provided rich testimony to describe differences between conditions. These differences were clear that participants who experienced the TTEH intervention were better able to engage with the respective history concept beyond the classroom. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 80 80 Results regarding conceptual change were mixed. Combined results were inconclusive, but main effects did show both groups made significant conceptual change, likely due to effective instruction in both conditions. At University High, the treatment group significantly out performed the control on the conceptual change measure and the effect size was large. The opposite was true for Huntington Prep, where the control significantly out performed the treatment on the conceptual change measure, which I hypothesize was due to increased exposure to historical content. The third school, Diego Rivera, showed inconclusive results for conceptual change. Reasons for the differing results between school sites will be examined in the next chapter. Finally for interest and emotions measures, combined results proved to be inconclusive for the SIS and IIS, but the treatment did demonstrate significantly greater growth in interest emotions. This finding was again supported by focus group and teacher interview testimony. I discuss the implications of these findings in the next chapter, specifically addressing the results of the intervention using the TTEH model, and why overall results for TE, conceptual change, and interest surveys were inconclusive. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 81 81 CHAPTER FIVE DISCUSSION In this chapter, I discuss the results within the context of the TTEH model and suggest a modification to the model. The discussion will then include how the suggested modifications to TTEH have implications for instructional practice, as well as future research. Prior to a discussion of the results and implications, I will briefly summarize the findings of the study within the perspective of the three research questions and the study-wide and site based limitations that impact these findings. Summary of the Findings Overall, a combined sorting of quantitative data from all three school sites found inconclusive results in regard to the three research questions. The findings for first research question addressing whether TTEH would lead to increased transformative experience for the experimental condition did not support my hypothesis, but significant main effects for TE did show both groups benefited from instruction. The positive outcomes for both groups likely have to do with effective idea-based instruction that was provided to both conditions. There is some evidence that there was cross-contamination of the treatment into the control condition. That is, teachers may have focused on application to real life in the control conditions more than they typically did, as was evidenced from the growth in TE in both groups. From qualitative analyses of student focus group and teacher interviews, however, both teachers and students provided an abundance of data that suggested the treatment conditions more readily demonstrated motivated use of the concepts, shared how it expanded their perception of the way they look at daily situations, and had increased experiential value for those concepts in daily contexts. However, all three of these teachers, using an idea-based pedagogical approach, already use pedagogical techniques similar enough to the TTEH model that the study REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 82 82 likely illustrates some bleed over of the TTEH model into the instruction used for the control classes. In regard to the second research question, would TTEH lead to increased conceptual change, findings were inconclusive toward my hypothesis. The model did not lead to statistically significant differences with the three schools combined, but again did lead to significant main effects demonstrating learning for both conditions. Additionally, qualitative data from student focus group interviews and teacher interviews concluding all experiments confirmed that both groups experienced conceptual change. This was likely due to effective idea- based curriculum planning using an Understanding by Design (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005) method, and effective instruction that included clear modeling and guided practice. In the following paragraphs, the CRKM (Dole & Sinatra, 1998) framework is used to analyze the different outcomes for each individual schools that led to inconclusive results overall. In regard to the third research question addressing whether TTEH could predict increased situational or individual interest, or a change in epistemic emotions, findings partially supported my hypothesis. Quantitative analyses did not show significant improved outcomes for situational interest, but did show significant differences for the treatment group’s epistemic interest emotions. Qualitative data from student focus group and teacher interviews did seem to confirm this finding. In all cases, students in the treatment condition provided many more rich examples of how the concept of study was interesting. In most cases, what made the concept interesting for students was the experience of recognizing it outside the classroom and being able to share that experience with peers and the teacher in the classroom setting. This confirms my hypothesis that students supported with the TTEH instructional strategy would have more positive epistemic emotions and would sustain situational interest longer than those who did not experience the intervention. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 83 83 Results from mixed methods analyses from individual school sites shed additional light on the effects of the TTEH intervention. At University High, results from quantitative and qualitative analyses were mixed. In regard to the first research question, whether TTEH increased self-reported transformative experience with the concept of liberty, results were inconclusive. In regard to the second research question, whether the TTEH intervention would lead to increased conceptual change, data from mixed methods tended to agree in support of my hypothesis. At University High there was a tighter focus on liberty via intervention that led to more discussions about the concept and how it was and is currently applied. The implementation of the intervention was most faithful according to the professional development planning. This led the treatment condition to significantly improved outcomes on the conceptual change in history measure. However, both groups demonstrated significant improvement according to t tests. This confirms that the experimental condition was compared to effective instruction. The CRKM (Dole & Sinatra, 1998) provides an additional lens for analysis. The case of University High provided qualitative data that suggested that both groups seemed to find the concept of liberty (positive and negative notions) to be comprehensible, both groups seemed to have roughly equal degrees of coherence with the concept, and both found it to be plausible. The difference seemed to lie with motivation and engagement. Possibly inspired by the TTEH intervention, students became more engaged, and thus finding both notions of liberty to be compelling and relevant in U.S. history. That extra degree of motivation then potentially allowed for increased accommodation, helping the treatment group participants to more fully embrace a more nuanced conception of liberty. It is also possible that both conditions had high degrees of coherence prior to the study, making it increasingly difficult for the control condition students to accommodate positive notions of liberty. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 84 84 Findings for the third research question, whether TTEH would lead to increased situational and individual interest and positive epistemic emotions, significant differences were found showing the treatment condition experienced increased situational interest and interest related epistemic emotions. At the second research site, Huntington Prep, there was mixed agreement between quantitative and qualitative methods. In regard to the first research question focused on TE outcomes, results were inconclusive. In regard to the second question concerning conceptual change outcomes, significant differences were found, as predicted by the teacher in her interview. As was previously stated, students in the control spent more time reading historical content. This will be discussed further in the limitations section. Using a CRKM (Dole & Sinatra, 1998) framework, it is easy to see how the control condition found the concept of federalism to be more comprehensible, due to increased exposure to examples presented in the articles mentioned by students in the control focus group. Furthermore, testimony from that interview revealed that students found those vignettes to be compelling, which with even modest engagement would allow for conceptual change. On the other hand, the treatment condition seemed to lack concrete examples of the importance and relevance of federalism, presumably due to reduced exposure to the content examples. Instead, this group tried to apply a less comprehensible message to current events, ultimately resulting in weaker conceptual change. Taking this perspective, I am inclined to attribute the difference in conceptual change to the use of TTEH, only to the extent that it replaced course content. Now, an argument can be made that TTEH, at some level, must compete for airtime with history content. However, it is more likely that a balance needs to be achieved that allows for the content to be fully comprehensible, coherent, plausible and compelling, while at the same time leveraging the TTEH model to increase student engagement, REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 85 85 and thus, leading to strong conceptual change. Achieving balance between application beyond the classroom and engagement with content is likely more possible within a longer timeframe. The experiment at this site lasted for roughly three weeks or about six classes. The third research question findings focused on interest were not significant, but for interest emotions there were significant differences favoring the treatment condition, partially supporting my hypothesis. This finding was supported by a rousing conversation with the treatment condition focus group during which all students shared a wealth of examples about how they were able to notice and value the concept of federalism in their everyday lives. The teacher alluded to this as a “common currency” of the treatment condition not experienced by the control. The third and final site, Diego Rivera, mixed methods findings supported my hypothesis that TTEH would lead to significantly different post hoc outcomes for transformative experience. Findings were inconclusive regarding my hypothesis for the second research question looking at conceptual change. Lastly, findings partially supported my hypothesis that TTEH would lead to significantly different interest and positive emotions outcomes. For this school site, interest emotions were found to be significantly higher for the treatment condition based on repeated measures ANOVAs. Finally qualitative data clearly supported increased interest emotions for the treatment group when thinking about the role of the President. Limitations of the Study As in any study taking place in a classroom setting, there are a number of limitations that affect the generalizability of these findings. First, one limitation involves the demographics of the participants. Roughly half of the students were from a public school, the other half from secular private schools. Results from individual schools do not necessarily represent a diverse REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 86 86 and representative sample of school age students, and therefore, caution should be exercised when generalizing about these results. A second limitation involves the implementation of this study. Implementation of the TTEH intervention post-professional development was beyond my control, and therefore allowed for teachers to diverge from the recommended model. There were benefits of teachers slightly modifying the model, such as some innovations that will inform implications for practice. However, such differences between schools allowed for additional confounding variables and an overall lack of fidelity of the intervention. For example, the teacher at University High asked students to keep a UCV “journal” at home on a Google document that was shared with her. This allowed the teacher to see what students were thinking ahead of the class. At Huntington Prep and Diego Rivera, students were asked to reflect in writing at the beginning of a few selected classes, in lieu of nightly journals. Furthermore, the way in which teachers asked students to share what was written in the journals, may also have varied, increasing potential for unaccounted confounding variables. A third limitation is the time duration of the TTEH intervention, ultimately impacting the amount of needed practice and feedback. For most students in the treatment conditions, they had around six opportunities to practice TTEH. Because TTEH involves students practicing reseeing, i.e. noticing a concept in their daily life, or in other classes, it is likely that increased practice with reseeing would result in improved outcomes. A fourth limitation concerns the connections supported between TTEH instructional practice and the conceptual change measure. It is possible that students using the UCV model of TTEH could use aspects of the concept and not others, or that students may incorrectly use the concept. For example, the conceptual change measure at Huntington Prep included a question about the differences between delegated, reserved, and concurrent powers. Unless the teacher REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 87 87 supported students to apply these types of powers beyond the classroom, the practice of more deeply understanding those concepts would not be included and would not necessarily benefit the student on the conceptual change measure. Similarly, the teacher at Diego Rivera discussed the importance of looking for and addressing student misconceptions when using the UCV model. Unless student misconceptions during this process are directly and explicitly addressed, results on the conceptual change measure can be impacted. The fifth limitation concerns the types of concepts involved in this study. Liberty, federalism, and the role of the Executive branch, are all political in nature. As mentioned in the literature review, research has encouraged a broad conceptual approach that includes concepts in addition to history, such as economic, social or cultural (Drake & Nelson, 2005; Limón, 2002). Furthermore, this study did not investigate how students learn and apply second order history concepts, or meta-concepts, that allow students to evaluate historical accounts (Leinhardt & Ravi, 2008; Limón, 2002; Seixas, 2004). A sixth and final limitation concerns the sample size. Although the combined sample size was (n = 88) it was composed of three smaller sample sizes each smaller than (n = 40). A larger scale study would increase the likelihood of finding significant interactions on repeated measures ANOVAs. This idea is supported by significant findings on t tests for TE, conceptual change, interest and epistemic emotions. Ideally future studies would look for one teacher teaching four sections of the same class, allowing for two treatment and two control conditions. Implications for Instruction and Assessment The study findings provide evidence that it is possible to promote habits of conceptual application, whether those concepts are based in history or civics. The instructional scaffold used in this study was the Teaching for Transformative Experience in History (TTEH) model, where students, on a daily basis, engage in conceptual application beyond the classroom. As I discussed REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 88 88 in the previous section, TTEH did support students to not only become more confident in noticing the concept beyond the classroom, but experience value for it. Then when back in the classroom, students are able to share each of the three dimensions, behavioral (use), cognitive (change), affective (value), which can create, as one teacher put it, a “conversational currency” through which the teacher can lead further exploration. These findings regarding the implementation of the TTEH model by teachers, addresses prior research that questioned both how teachers accommodate and assimilate the Teaching for Transformative Experience in Science (TTES) model with their own prior beliefs and practices, as well as differences in implementation between university researchers and practicing teachers (Pugh et al., 2010b). A revised professional development plan for the TTEH model should include the following: (1) clear and thorough modeling with additional questions and scaffolding for each dimension, (2) training on how to identify and address misconceptions, and (3) alignment with the final performance tasks, including greater transparency for students regarding expected outcomes. To provide an example for the first suggestion, students in some instances were confused by “use.” In some cases it may be easier to ask the students to “notice” or “apply” the concept. In the case of Huntington Prep, the teacher guided students to focus on current events. For this class of 8 th grade students, that decision allowed students to continue their regular routine of finding current events articles from the news, but in this case, asked students to use the TTEH approach, applying the concept from the unit, federalism, to the search. Current events were a good place to start, and in the interview with the teacher following the intervention, she mentioned that she didn’t ask them about non-news related sources like movies or literature. Estelle, the teacher at Diego Rivera, brought in an example of a music video and a clip from a documentary to use as a model for noticing. Modeling can also include actual or virtual trips to sites, monuments, REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 89 89 museums, etc., that provide opportunities for reseeing. These moments for modeling need not take long periods of time, even five minutes for students to notice the concept with the support of the teacher is useful, especially when exploring a new medium or context. Finally, because modeling can come from other students, as it does from the teacher, teachers should be encourage to find other ways for students to share correct applications with others, whether via an online platform or a collection of samples on a classroom wall, curated so students can see each others’ applications. Efforts to help students keep in mind a larger goal of noticing and reflecting on the importance of engaging with their learning beyond the classroom will likely lead to improved TE outcomes. To address the second suggestion for an improved TTEH professional development plan, additional time should be given to discussing the importance of TTEH as a formative assessment tool (Black & Wiliam, 2009), or in other words, a strategy to monitor understanding during the unit. As Estelle commented, one of the biggest lessons learned during the experiment was the benefits of using the TTEH model for formative assessment purposes. She shared that many of the students were noticing cultural artifacts, such as music videos, but the students in some cases believed in the conspiracy theories, rather than looking at the artifacts critically using the conceptual understanding from class. Estella figured out how to directly and explicitly address the notion of “conspiracy theory” with the group during a TTEH class discussion, reinforcing the concept about the balance of powers with the Executive branch, as well as a need for evidence when giving credence to assertions. Finally, teachers should be aware that the TTEH journal, in conjunction with other forms of assessment that ask students to synthesize their UCV experience, can be used throughout the course of the unit of study, or even course itself if the UCV experience were to cumulatively build throughout the academic course. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 90 90 The third suggested improvement to the TTEH model includes a broader understanding of alignment of expected outcomes, academic goals, assessments and instructional practices (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). For the purpose of this experiment, TTEH was gently overlaid on three different idea-based classes that utilized an Understanding By Design approach (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). The problem with layering an instructional intervention “on top” of an existing unit or course plan is that misalignment is possible. For example, students were provided modeling for UCV, asked to keep a UCV journal and share their experiences on a handful of occasions in the class. However, in none of the three school experiments were students briefed on the UCV as a desired objective of the unit of study. For example, students were not explicitly informed that by the end of the unit, they should be able to demonstrate how they were able to notice the specified concept in a number of places outside the history class, that they should be able to explain how that has changed the way they look at the world around them, and that they should be able to share in what ways that growth has helped them value or appreciate the importance of the concept. If students are clear that this is one of the larger objectives for the unit or course of study, they will more likely work to accomplish that objective. Furthermore, top priority unit or course objectives are generally assessed in a culminating evaluation, or performance task using the terminology of Understanding by Design (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). This degree of alignment clarifies for students and teachers what exactly they are attempting to accomplish. The implicit challenge of achieving this degree of alignment is managing a large number of objectives, often competing for priority. With that said, if one holds transformative experience with history concepts as an important objective, that is, if one believes that noticing and engaging with history or civics concepts beyond the classroom is a goal of instruction, why then would that not be included in a unit or course objective? Sandra, teacher of the 8 th graders at Huntington Prep came to an interesting conclusion along these lines, “We did REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 91 91 talk a lot in the treatment group about if you were to try and solve the problem, where [to which level and branch of government] would you go? Would you launch a grassroots movement? Would you petition your state representative? Would you go to Congress? How could you solve these various issues that come up? So I really saw the value...it became a call to action. Learning about federalism became a call to action.” According to Sandra’s vision, the ultimate learning goal is to increase students’ civic engagement, using history and government concepts to be able to affect change. With this view education becomes a more democratic experience by which the students, as individuals and collectively with the help of the teacher, engage in learning beyond the classroom for the purpose of societal progress (Goldfarb, 2005). On a final note a professional development plan, it is worth considering the elements of the concept or meta-concept that allow for student engagement beyond the classroom. Maria, teacher of 10 th graders at University High voiced that the professional development process she engaged in prior to this study, “forced me [Maria] to articulate...those essential, much more global and transferable questions, [more] than I have in the past, and that’s what makes it [the application] easier.” In other words, it is important to not gloss over the central concepts and questions that will guide the unit or the course of study for that matter. This forms the foundation of the curriculum, assessment and instruction that will follow. Implications for Future Research and Concluding Thoughts This study has added to the body of research on TE and conceptual change (Broughton et al., 2011; Heddy & Sinatra, 2013; Limón, 2002; Pugh et al., 2010b; 2010a). It builds on prior findings and presents new questions concerning research methodology, teacher assessment and instructional practices, and conceptual change in history. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 92 92 Implications for Methodology In regard to potential modifications to research methodology for TE it is important to examine the challenges with the TE Survey as a self-report measure. The TE measure has been used before (Heddy & Sinatra, 2013; Pugh et al., 2010b; Pugh et al., 2010a), but in all previous cases, the TE Survey alone has not demonstrated significant results comparing conditions over time. The measure has, however, demonstrated significant findings, using post hoc univariate ANOVAs (Heddy & Sinatra, 2013; Pugh et al., 2010b), post hoc multiple regression analyses (Pugh et al., 2010a). In all of these studies, qualitative data strongly supported hypotheses that teaching for transformative experience (TTES or TTEH) would lead to greater engagement and conceptual change allowing for data triangulation and advancement of this body of research. With that said, some discrepancies remain between the self-report method and qualitative methods. Other social science methodology has observed the phenomenon of social desirability bias in self-reported measures (Brenner, 2011; Presser & Stinson, 1998) and suggests a systematic behavioral analysis could be productive. UCV Journals are a potential source of daily behaviors, and could be structured in such a way that useful data is collected. For example, for use, students would keep track of the time, place (kitchen, TV, mall), content of observation, and connections to the classroom. In addition to new approaches to capturing data on TE, future studies could include follow-up measures or even longer-term studies of these students to determine the student’s level of understanding over time as conducted in Pugh (2002). Implications for History Conceptual Change Research As was previously stated, future research should consider a TTEH model using multiple concepts from different areas (e.g. political, economic, cultural and/or social, geographic and ecological) (Drake & Nelson, 2005; Limón, 2002), as well as secondary concepts or meta- concepts, such as the epistemological paradigms outlined by Limón (2002): history as chronicle REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 93 93 (facts), history as narration (facts and causes), history as explanation (intentional and structural causes, as well as social, political, economic and ideological changes), and finally history as comprehension (empathic understanding of subjective views) (Limón, 2002, p. 271). Further research should examine how both primary and secondary concepts are taught and assessed secondary level and undergraduate courses. Implications for Classroom Assessment Research Assessment is a key dimension to teaching and learning, providing a feedback loop between students and teachers that supports student mastery of stated curricular goals, as well as students learning simply from testing themselves, including across knowledge domains (Carpenter, 2012; Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). Future studies should examine the connection between both formative and summative assessments, how they act as a tool for teachers to monitor the development of cognitive engagement and conceptual change, and a potential benefit for students to experience “far” transfer across knowledge domains, test formats and temporal contexts (Carpenter, 2012). Furthermore, misconceptions about history concepts are bound to arise as students integrate classroom ideas into their own cultural-based knowledge schemas (Limón, 2002). For example, as mentioned in the third suggested improvement to the professional development model in the previous section, alignment between course, unit, assessment and lesson outcomes is important. Therefore, future studies should examine the relationship between formative measures, such as UCV journals, summative assessments, such as tests and final performance tasks (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005), and overarching unit objectives, which would likely include TE and conceptual change goals, in addition to factual and procedural knowledge (Anderson et al., 2001). REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 94 94 Implications for Instructional Practices Research Building upon the TTES instructional models of Pugh and colleagues (2002, 2004, 2011; 2005; 2010b; 2010a) and Heddy and Sinatra (2013), and the TTEH model in this study, there is room for revised models that promote engagement with history concepts beyond the classroom. Specifically, developments on the model should explore how teachers best share and frame experiential value for the history content, and how to explicitly communicate and involve students in understanding the desired intentional conceptual change for history concepts, including the use of meta-concepts (Limón, 2002; Sinatra & Pintrich, 2003). Next, future research should synthesize and test effective strategies of modeling UCV and scaffolding reseeing, including use of digital media as a proxy for real-world experiences. For example, Google Earth and Maps Street View feature allows for virtual tours of civic spaces and human geography. Or perhaps more broadly, guided or assisted discovery learning (Alfieri, Brooks, Aldrich, & Tenenbaum, 2011) using the internet has potential to instantly provide students with images and culture from around the world potentially useful for TTEH. Lastly, further research can also be conducted with workshop style strategies to work with individual or group misconceptions that are revealed during the process. This includes how teachers best structure lessons to advance the goals of TTEH. Conclusion To conclude, the Teaching for Transformative Experience in History (TTEH) intervention, and based on qualitative analysis, showed some evidence that it promotes engagement with history concepts beyond the secondary school classroom. Interest emotions also showed to be significantly impacted by the TTEH model. This is an important finding for motivational research in history content learning. Compared to effective, idea-based instruction, findings were inconclusive as to whether TTEH facilitates conceptual change. This is due, in REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 95 95 part, to the complexity of experimental conceptual change research methodology. Future research should examine how instructors promote engagement beyond the classroom with a wider variety of history concepts and meta-concepts, including specific use of UCV Journals and the alignment of instructional strategies with unit, and course, summative assessments that may include performance tasks directly connected to community issues. The outcome of this work will hopefully lead to important innovations in education practice that allow for conceptual change with historical thinking and more thoughtful future generations of globally and locally engaged citizens. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 96 96 References Alfieri, L., Brooks, P. J., Aldrich, N. J., & Tenenbaum, H. R. (2011). Does discovery-based instruction enhance learning? Journal of Educational Psychology, 103(1), 1. Anderson, L. W., Krathwohl, D. R., & Bloom, B. S. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing : a revision of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives (Complete ed.). New York: Longman. Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (2009). Developing the theory of formative assessment. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability (formerly: Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education), 21(1), 5-31. Brenner, P. S. (2011). Exceptional behavior or exceptional identity? Public Opinion Quarterly, 75(1), 19-41. Broughton, S. H., Sinatra, G. M., & Nussbaum, E. M. (2011). “Pluto has been a planet my whole life!” Emotions, attitudes, and conceptual change in elementary students’ learning about pluto’s reclassification. Research in Science Education, 1-22. Carpenter, S. K. (2012). Testing enhances the transfer of learning. Current directions in psychological science, 21(5), 279-283. Carter, I. (2012). "Positive and negative liberty". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy from <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2012/entries/liberty-positive-negative/>. Crabtree, C. A., & Nash, G. B. (1996). National standards for history: National Center for History in the Schools, University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles. Creswell, J. W. (2009). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches: Sage. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 97 97 Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psyhology of optimal experience. New York: Harper & Row. Dewey, J. (1900/1990). The school and society and the child and the curriculum. London: University of Chicago Press. Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education. New York: Macmillan. Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: Macmillan. Dole, J. A., & Sinatra, G. M. (1998). Reconceptualizing change in the cognitive construction of knowledge. Educaitonal Psychologist, 33(2/3), 109-128. Drake, F. D., & Nelson, L. R. (2005). Engagement in teaching history. New Jersey: Pearson. Fiedler, K. (2000). Toward an integrative account of affect and cognition phenomena using the BIAS computer algorithm. . In J. P. Forgas (Ed.), Feeling and thinking: The role of affect in social cognition (pp. 223–252). New York: Cambridge University Press. Fleiss, J. L. (1981). Statistical methods for rates and proportions. . New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed: Continuum International Publishing Group. Gallup. (2005). Teens stay true to parents political perspectives. Gallup Youth Survey. Goldfarb, L. (2005). Transforming a community college class into a democratic experience: A case sudy reuniting education and democracy. Claremont Graduate University and San Diego State University. Greeno, J. G., & van de Sande, C. (2007). Perspectival understanding of conceptions and conceptual growth in interaction. Educational Psychologist, 42(1), 9-23. Gregoire, M. (2003). Is it a challenge or a threat? A dual-process model of teachers' cognition and appraisal processes during conceptual change. Educational Psychology Review, 15(2), 147-179. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 98 98 Heddy, B. C., & Sinatra, G. M. (2013). Transforming misconceptions: Using transformative experience to promote positive affect and conceptual change in students learning about biological evolution. Science Education. Hidi, S., & Renninger, K. A. (2006). The four-phase model of interest development. Educational Psychologist, 41(2), 111-127. Horton, M., & Freire, P. (1990). We make the road by walking: Conversations on education and social change: Temple University Press. Immordino-Yang, M. H., & Damasio, A. (2007). We feel, therefore we learn: the relevance of affective and social neuroscience to education. Mind, Brain, and Education, 1(1), 3-10. doi: 10.1111/j.1751-228X.2007.00004.x Immordino-Yang, M. H., & Damasio, A. (2007). We feel, therefore we learn: The relevance of affective and social neuroscience to education. Mind, Brain, and Education, 1(1), 3-10. Johnson, M. L., & Sinatra, G. M. (2012). Use of task-value instructional inductions for facilitating engagement and conceptual change Contemp Educ Psychol(30), 51-63. Kramer, D. A. (1983). Post-formal operations? A need for further conceptualization. Human Development, 26(2), 91-105. Krapp, A. (2002). Structural and dynamic aspects of interest development: Theoretical considerations from an ontogenetic perspective. Learning and instruction, 12(4), 383- 409. LAUSD. (2013). School Report Card. Laville, C. (2004). Historical consciousness and historical education: What to expect from the first for the second. Theorizing historical consciousness, 165-182. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 99 99 Leinhardt, G., & Ravi, A. (2008). Changing historical conceptions of history. International Handbook of Research on Conceptual Change, 328-341. Limón, M. (2002). Conceptual change in history. In M. Limon (Ed.), Reconsidering conceptual change: Issues in theory and practice (pp. 259-289). Hingham, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Limón, M., & Carretero, M. (1998). Evidence evaluation and reasoning abilities in the domain of history: An empirical study. Learning and reasoning in history, 252-271. Linnenbrink, E., & Pintrch, P. (2004). Role of affect in cognitive processing in academic contexts. In D. Y. Dai & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), Motivation, emotion, and cognition: Integrative perspectives on intellectual functioning and development. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Linnenbrink-Garcia, L., Durik, A. M., Conley, A. M., Barron, K. E., Tauer, J. M., Karabenick, S. A., & Harackiewicz, J. M. (2010). Measuring Situational Interest in Academic Domains. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 70(4), 647-671. doi: 10.1177/0013164409355699 Loewen, J. (1995). Lies my teacher told me: Everything your high school history textbook got wrong. New York: New Press, 800, 233-4830. Maxwell, J. A. (2013). Qualitative research design : an interactive approach (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE. Neal, D. T., Wood, W., & Quinn, J. M. (2006). Habits—A repeat performance. Current directions in psychological science, 15(4), 198-202. Pekrun, R., Goetz, T., Titz, W., & Perry, R. P. (2002). Academic emotions in students' self- regulated learning and achievement: A program of qualitative and quantitative research. Educational Psychologist, 37(2), 91-105. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 100 100 Pekrun, R., & Linnenbrink-Garcia, L. (Eds.). (2012). Academic emotions and student engagement. : Springer. Piaget, J. (1954). The construction of reality in the child (M. Cook, Trans.). New York: Basic Books (Original work published 1937). Posner, G. J. (1982). Accomodation of a scientific conception: Toward a theory of conceptual change. Science Education, 66(2), 211-227. Presser, S., & Stinson, L. (1998). Data collection mode and social desirability bias in self- reported religious attendance. American Sociological Review, 63(1), 137-145. doi: 10.2307/2657486 Pugh, K. J. (2002). Teaching for idea-based, transformative experiences in science: An investigation of the effectiveness of two instructional elements. The Teachers College Record, 104(6), 1101-1137. Pugh, K. J. (2004). Newton's laws beyond the classroom walls. Science Education, 88(2), 182- 196. Pugh, K. J. (2011). Transformative experience: An integrative construct in the spirit of deweyan pragmatism. Educaitonal Psychologist, 46(2), 107-121. Pugh, K. J., & Bergin, D. A. (2005). The effect of schooling on students’ out-of-school experience. Educational Researcher, 34(9), 15-23. Pugh, K. J., Linnenbrink-Garcia, L., Koskey, K., Stewart, V., & Manzey, C. (2010b). Teaching for transformative experiences and conceptual change: A case study and evaluation of a high school biology teacher's experience. Cognition and Instruction, 28(3), 273-316. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 101 101 Pugh, K. J., Linnenbrink-Garcia, L., Koskey, K., Stewart, V., & Manzey, C. (2010a). Motivation, learning, and transformative experience: A study of deep engagement in science. Science Education, 94(1), 1-28. Reynolds, R. E., Sinatra, G. M., & Jetton, T. L. (1996). Views of knowledge acquisition and representation: A continuum from experience centered to mind. Educational Psychologist, 31(2), 93-104. Rosenzweig, R. (2000). How Americans use and think about the past. Knowing, teaching and learning history, 273. Schunk, D. H., Pintrich, P. R., & Meece, J. L. (2008). Motivation in education : theory, research, and applications. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Merrill. Seixas, P. (2004). Theorizing historical consciousness: University of Toronto Press. Sinatra, G. M. (2005). The" warming trend" in conceptual change research: The legacy of Paul R. Pintrich. Educational Psychologist, 40(2), 107-115. Sinatra, G. M., & Pintrich, P. R. (Eds.). (2003). The role of intentions in conceptual change learning: Taylor & Francis. Spring, J. H. (2009). Globalization of education : an introduction. New York: Routledge. Stearns, P. N., Seixas, P. C., & Wineburg, S. S. (2000). Knowing, teaching, and learning history: National and international perspectives: NYU Press. Tabachnick, B., & Fidell, L. (2001). Multiple regression. Using multivariate statistics. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 71. Teddlie, C., & Yu, F. (2007). Mixed methods sampling a typology with examples. Journal of mixed methods research, 1(1), 77-100. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 102 102 Von Borries, B. (Ed.). (2000). Methods and aims of teaching history in Europe: a report on youth and history. Wigfield, A., & Eccles, J. S. (1992). The development of achievement task values: A theoretical analysis. Developmental Review, 12(3), 265-310. Wiggins, G. P., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design: Ascd. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 103 103 APPENDICES Appendix A Student Interview Protocol 1) Were you able to use, notice or apply what you learned about the role of the president (liberty or federalism) when you weren’t in history class? Explain when, where and how often. 2) Did this change the way you looked at your everyday experiences? 3) Are the ideas about the role of the president (liberty or federalism) important to you? In what ways and when are those ideas important or valuable? Teacher Interview Protocol 1) How do you think the two conditions compared? 2) Do you think students were able to use or apply these concepts about the role of the President (liberty or federalism) outside of class? How do you know? 3) Did this differ between conditions? How? 4) Do you think this class changed the way that students “see” the world? If so, how so and what caused that? Was there a difference between conditions? 5) Do you think this class helped students value the idea about the role of the Presidency in their lives outside of class? How so? Was there a difference between conditions? 6) Is there anything else that you think worked or didn’t work about the TTEH intervention? REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 104 104 Appendix B Transformative Experience Survey Instructions: Think about the ideas you’ve learned about the role of the President (liberty, or federalism) during this unit and indicate how much you agree or disagree with each of the following. (Responses will be on a 6pt. Likert Scale from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree) 1. During this unit I talked about the ideas about the role of the President I have learned. 2. I talked about the ideas about the role of the President I’ve learned outside of this class. 3. I talked about the ideas about the role of the President I’ve learned just for fun. 4. During this unit I thought about the ideas about the role of the President. 5. I thought about the ideas about the role of the President outside of this study. 6. I used the ideas about the role of the President I’ve learned in my everyday experience. 7. I used the ideas about the role of the President even when I didn’t have to. 8. I sought out opportunities to use the ideas about the role of the President I’ve learned. 9. I looked for examples of the ideas about the role of the President in TV shows, movies, books, online or in other media around me. 10. During this study, I thought about the ideas about the role of the President differently. 11. The ideas about the role of the President changed the way I view situations. 12. I think about experiences differently now that I have learned these ideas about the role of the President. 13. I can’t help but to think about the ideas about the role of the President I’ve learned. 14. The ideas about the role of the President I have learned changed the way I think about situations that occur in TV shows, movies, books, online or in other media around me. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 105 105 15. I found it interesting to learn about the ideas about the role of the President. 16. I found it interesting to think about the ideas about the role of the President outside of class. 17. The ideas about the role of the President I learned are valuable in my everyday life. 18. The ideas about the role of the President I learned make my out-of-class experience more meaningful. 19. The ideas about the role of the President make my life more interesting. 20. The ideas about the role of the President make TV shows, movies, books, online or in other media around me more interesting. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 106 106 Appendix C Situational Interest Scale Think about the concept of the role of the President (liberty or federalism) and select the words that most accurately represent how much you agree or disagree with each of the following statements. [Responses will be on a 6 pt. Likert scale, Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree] 1. The idea of the role of the President is exciting. 2. The role of the President grabs my attention. 3. The role of the President is often entertaining. 4. The role of the President is so exciting it is easy to pay attention. 5. The role of the President is fascinating to me. 6. I am excited about the role of the President. 7. I like learning about the role of the President. 8. I find learning about the role of the President interesting. 9. Studying the role of the President is useful for me to know. 10. Studying the role of the President is important to me. 11. Learning about the role of the President can be applied to real life. 12. Learning about the role of the President is valuable. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 107 107 Individual Interest Scale Think about the topics that you have been learning in your history course. Please circle the words that most accurately represent how much you agree or disagree with each of the following statements. (Substitute “Role of the President” for “liberty” or “federalism”) [Responses will be on a 6 pt. Likert scale, Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree] 1. The idea of the role of the President is practical for me to know. 2. The idea of the Role of the President helps me in my life outside of school. 3. It is important to me to be a person who knows about the role of the President. 4. Knowing about the role of the President is an important part of who I am. 5. I enjoy the topic of role of the President. 6. I like the topic of role of the President. 7. I enjoy learning about the topic of executive branch power and authority. 8. The topic of role of the President is exciting to me. REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 108 108 Appendix D Epistemic Emotions Survey Epistemic Emotions about the role of the United States President How do you feel right now as you are learning about the role of the President (liberty or federalism) For each emotion, please indicate the strength of that emotion by clicking the number that best describes the intensity of your emotional response. Anxious 1 2 3 4 5 6 Strongly Disagree Disagre Slightly Disagree Slightly Agree Agree Strongly Agree Curious 1 2 3 4 5 6 Strongly Disagree Disagre Slightly Disagree Slightly Agree Agree Strongly Agree Confused 1 2 3 4 5 6 Strongly Disagree Disagre Slightly Disagree Slightly Agree Agree Strongly Agree Interested 1 2 3 4 5 6 Strongly Disagree Disagre Slightly Disagree Slightly Agree Agree Strongly Agree Surprised 1 2 3 4 5 6 Strongly Disagree Disagre Slightly Disagree Slightly Agree Agree Strongly Agree Frustrated 1 2 3 4 5 6 Strongly Disagree Disagre Slightly Disagree Slightly Agree Agree Strongly Agree Enjoying 1 2 3 4 5 6 Strongly Disagree Disagre Slightly Disagree Slightly Agree Agree Strongly Agree Fearful 1 2 3 4 5 6 Strongly Disagree Disagre Slightly Disagree Slightly Agree Agree Strongly Agree REAL-WORLD ENGAGEMENT WITH HISTORY CONCEPTS 109 109 Appendix E Classroom Observation Protocol After diagramming the environment before students enter the room, record student behaviors and teacher behaviors in the respective columns. Keep both columns aligned according to the sequence of events. Diagram of Environment Teacher behaviors Student behaviors
Abstract (if available)
Abstract
Grounded in the traditions of John Dewey and other progressives, newer empirical studies (Broughton, Sinatra, & Nussbaum, 2011
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Promoting real‐world engagement with history concepts beyond the secondary school classroom: teaching for transformative experience and conceptual change
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