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This article was downloaded by: [ratna kusuma]On: 21 January 2015, At: 23:53Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
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Using Historical Knowledge to Reason
About Contemporary Political Issues: AnExpertNovice StudyTamara L. Shreiner
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University of MichiganPublished online: 30 Sep 2014.
To cite this article:Tamara L. Shreiner (2014) Using Historical Knowledge to Reason AboutContemporary Political Issues: An ExpertNovice Study, Cognition and Instruction, 32:4, 313-352, DOI:
10.1080/07370008.2014.948680
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COGNITION AND INSTRUCTION,32(4), 313352, 2014Copyright C Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 0737-0008 print / 1532-690X onlineDOI: 10.1080/07370008.2014.948680
Using Historical Knowledge to Reason AboutContemporary Political Issues: An ExpertNovice Study
Tamara L. Shreiner
University of Michigan
People often justify historys place in the curriculum by its relationship to citizenship, yet there is
little research to help educators picture how people use historical knowledge for civic purposes.
This expertnovice study used the think-aloud method to examine how eight political scientists and
eight high school students employed historical knowledge to reason about a political issue. Findings
indicated that detailed historical narrative played an important role for experts reasoning, and the
experts used narrative to frame the issue, support their positions, and evaluate historical claims.
Participating students used narrative as well, but their narratives were lacking in detail. They never
used history to frame the problem, contextualize documents, or to support their positions, and they
rarely used narrative to evaluate claims. These differences in how experts and novices use history to
make sense of the present have implications for history instruction and research in history and civic
education.
INTRODUCTION
Since the beginning of public education in the United States, scholars, educators, and policymakers
have argued that historical knowledge is central to civic competence, and have often justified
historys place in the curriculum in relationship to citizenship (Barton & Levstik, 2004; Gould,
Jamieson, Levine, McConnell, & Smith, 2012). In 1898, an American Historical Association
committee charged with defining history within the school curriculum reported that historical
studies could provide students with the mental equipment for a comprehension of the political
and social problems that will confront [them] in everyday life, as well as practical preparation
for social adaptation and for forceful participation in civic activities (p. 18). And over a century
later, in 2000, federal legislators set out to establish the role of history in Americans education
with a Sense of the Senate Resolution calling for more and better history instruction in the
schools in order to improve civic memory (U.S. Senate, 2000). More recently, the Common
Core State Standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of
Chief State School Officers, 2010) have raised questions about how historical literacy practices,
in conjunction with reading and writing skills developed through other disciplines, might help
Correspondence should be addressed to Tamara L. Shreiner, Department of History and Social Science, Greenhills
School, 850 Greenhills Drive, Ann Arbor, MI 48105. E-mail: [email protected]
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314 SHREINER
students reflexively demonstrate the cogent reasoning and use of evidence that is essential to
both private deliberation and responsible citizenship in a democratic republic (p. 3). Indeed,
The College, Career and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards(NationalCouncil for Social Studies, 2013) recommends that upon graduating high school students are able
to use multiple disciplines to understand and reason about local, regional, and global problems,
and then make decisions and take action in multiple contexts.
Implicit in arguments about historys importance for citizenship is that citizens must not only
know history, but also must be able to effectively use history to reason about issues within the
civic domain. Democratic citizens should be able to apply knowledge of the history of American
democracy when considering laws and acts of government (Campaign for the Civic Mission of
the Schools, 2012), evaluate the historically grounded justifications used by policymakers and
government officials (Barton & Levstik, 2004), and use historical precedents and analogies to
inform their own positions and actions (Barton & Levstik, 2004). Further, citizens should be able
to use historical knowledge to reason about complex civic and political issues, and in democraticpractices ranging from group problem solving to protesting to voting (Carnegie Corporation of
New York & CIRCLE, 2003; Lupia & McCubbins, 1998). Schools, as the assumed guardians of
democracy and the institutions best equipped to foster these necessary competencies (Campaign
for the Civic Mission of the Schools, 2012), are expected to help students not only learn history,
but also learn how to use historical knowledge in their civic roles.
If educators hope to prepare students to use historical knowledge to reason for civic purposes,
they need a picture of what such reasoning should like in practice, as well as an understanding of
the challenges students might face in choosing and applying relevant historical knowledge to the
kinds of issues and problems they will face as citizens. This study aims to provide such a picture.
It focuses on how people with differing levels of expertise in the political domain use historicalknowledge to reason about contemporary political issues. Unlike other expertnovice studies that
have intended to better understand historical knowledge and its uses for understandings about
the past (e.g., Lee & Ashby, 2000; Lee & Shemilt, 2009; Rouet, Favart, Britt, & Perfetti, 1997;
Wineburg, 1991), I aim to understand how people use history to make sense of issues they face in
the present. To that end, I asked eight civically engaged political scientists and eight high school
students to think aloud while reasoning about a prevalent and contentious political issue at the
timebipartisanship in U.S. politicsand reading across a variety of primary and secondary
texts relevant to the issue. I chose to use political scientists rather than historians as the experts
in this study because analysis of contemporary public policies and processes, as well as issues
like bipartisanship (American Political Science Association, 2013), are focal points of political
scientists work, and because political scientists often employ a historical perspective to makesense of current issues (e.g., Aldrich, 2011; Rosenblum, 2010). Design and analysis for this study
focused on the following questions:
How do people with expertise in the political domain use historical knowledge to reason about
contemporary civic issues? What are the similarities and differences in the knowledge that
experts employ and those that high school students employ?
What is the nature of the historical knowledge participants of differing expertise use when
reasoning about civic issues? That is, what makes their knowledge usable?
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USING HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE TO REASON 315
Based on my findings, I argue that history does indeed play a valuable role in students civic
education, but that we cannot assume that simply learning history will provide students with the
tools they need to apply it to contemporary issues. Like several scholars of history education(e.g., Foster, Ashby, & Lee, 2008; Lee, 2005; Shemilt, 2009), I argue that students must acquire a
usable knowledge of history, but I also offer a picture of what constitutes usable knowledge in the
political domain and how it is that people use such knowledge as they reason about contemporary
issues.
BACKGROUND
ExpertNovice Studies on Historical Understanding
Expertnovice studies attempt to understand the thinking underlying the skilled performancesof experts, contrasting it with the thinking of novices who do not perform at a sophisticated
level. Such studies play a valuable part in educational research because they help to explicate
the range of thinking in a given domain from naive to sophisticated so educators can design
instruction that will help students achieve the understanding needed to move from school per-
formance to performance in the world (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Fiske, Kinder, &
Larter, 1983). Over several decades, researchers in math, science, and history have described the
cognitive aspects in their respective disciplines by studying the thinking of experts, those who
truly understand, and contrasting it with the thinking of novices, those who are relatively inex-
perienced in the particular discipline under investigation. Such scholarship reveals that experts
have domain-specific knowledge and discipline-specific heuristics that characterize sophisticatedhistorical, mathematical, and scientific thinking (Bransford et al., 2000; Gardner, 1991). Experts
appropriately apply their knowledge and habits of mind in new situations, whereas novice learners
tend to master the literacies, concepts, and disciplinary forms of schools, but often fall back on
immature, misconceived ideas when removed from the context of the classroom (Gardner, 1991,
pp. 67).
Expert studies in the domain of history, for example, reveal that historians possess usable
knowledge (Donovan & Bransford, 2005, p. 9) organized around substantive historical concepts
like the Industrial Revolution and the Civil Rights Movement, as well as second-orderhistorical
concepts like evidence and significance that lie behind the production of the actual content
or substance of history (Lee, 2005, p. 32). By comparing such sophisticated thinking with
the thinking of children and adolescents, scholars interested in picturing a range of historicalthinking have begun to illuminate expertnovice differences in understanding of both substantive
and second-order historical concepts (e.g., Blow, 2011; Lee, 2005; Lee & Shemilt, 2004, 2009;
Wineburg, 1991). Over the past three decades, there has been a wealth of studies that help us
to better understand what children and adolescents know about substantive historical concepts
like the state, government, and war (e.g., Berti, 1994; Brophy & Alleman, 2006; Lee, 2005);
and to compare experts and novices understanding of second-order concepts like causes and
consequences (e.g., Carretero, Jacott, Limon, Lopez-Manjon, & Leon, 1994; Lee & Shemilt,
2009), change over time (e.g., Blow, 2011; Lee, 2005), evidence (e.g., Lee, 2005; Shemilt,
1987), accounts (e.g., Lee & Ashby, 2000; Lee & Shemilt, 2004), significance (Seixas, 1994,
1997), and historical empathy (e.g., Lee, 2005; Lee & Shemilt, 2011). Research in these areas
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316 SHREINER
has been abundant enough that scholars are able to provide detailed models for progressions
in understanding from novice to sophisticated, revealing important turning points in students
understanding, as well as the misconceptions or incomplete understandings they may have atdifferent levels (e.g., Lee & Ashby, 2000; Lee & Shemilt, 2004, 2009).
Some research has also provided insight into how historians and students use historical
knowledge for historical purposesthat is, how people with differing levels of historical ex-
pertise approach and reason with historical texts (e.g., Rouet et al., 1997; Stahl, Hynd, Britton,
McNish, & Bosquet, 1996; Wineburg, 1991), and how they write in response to historical ques-
tions (e.g., Monte-Sano, 2010; Rouet et al., 1997). For example, Wineburg (1991) studied eight
historians and eight high school students as they puzzled aloud about a historical problem while
reading through texts that might serve as evidence. He found that the historians regularly used
a sourcing heuristic, reading and analyzing who wrote the document and when the document
was written before they read the actual text. Wineburg also argued that historians understood
the primary source documents they were reading by using a contextualizing heuristic, or re-constructing the social context in which the texts occurred, and by analyzing the intentions and
motivations of the authors. Furthermore, the historians worked through the documents as if they
were prosecuting attorneys, corroborating information by putting them side-by-side and locat-
ing discrepancies. The high school students in Wineburgs study, however, failed to question the
texts in the ways the historians did. They did not read the texts to consider the authors intentions
or to situate texts in the social context, but only to gather information. They saw the author-
itative textbook excerpts Wineburg provided them as the most reliable because they just gave
straight information, and they rarely compared accounts, becoming flustered when they faced
contradictions.
A later study by Britt and Aglinskas (2002) provided further insight into how novices use thesourcing heuristics identified by Wineburg (1991) by describing features of sourcing to which
novices are more likely to attend. These features include the authorsposition, meaning his or her
occupation or credentials; the authors motivation, or the possible reasons the person may have
written the document; or the authors level ofparticipation, indicating if they knew the person
was a participant in the activities or not. Some students in Britt and Angliskas study also offered
an author evaluation, stating their opinion of the author. In addition, the students sometimes
mentioned the date or time period in which the document was written, the document type (e.g.,
a textbook or autobiography), or they made a statement evaluating the type of document it was.
Though these elements of sourcing seemed to be relatively easy for novices to apply, Britt and
Aglinskas concluded that students in both high school and college are nevertheless unlikely to
spontaneously apply them, and that even students who are competent at citing a source maystill not fully appreciate the document and author features that go into the selection of a source
(p. 495). After studying students who worked with an online application designed to encourage
sourcing, however, Britt and Aglinskas resolved that students will develop historical literacy
skills like sourcing with appropriate and sustained instruction and that document-level skills are
generalizable to other domains that use documents as evidence and involve arguments to support
theories (p. 512).
Although such research provides valuable information about differences in peoples historical
knowledge and skills, there is yet little research on how people use their historical knowledge
outside the domain of history. The next section highlights some notable exceptions.
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USING HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE TO REASON 317
Research on Using History to Reason About Civic or Political Issues
In a longitudinal study of 47 high school students in London schools, Foster et al. (2008)investigated how students think about the past and use their historical frameworks to make sense
of their place in the world (p. 2). The problem the researchers gave students to consider in
the study was whether or not the United States would remain the most powerful nation in the
world. Although this study did not ask students to use history to grapple with a civic or political
issue per se, it did consider how students used historical knowledge to connect past, present,
and future. Using data from writing samples and interviews, the researchers concluded that the
majority of students did not instinctively draw on historical knowledge to inform contemporary
and future perspectives. Further, they found that most students talked only about the present
as they reasoned about the issue, or talked about a backward projected present in which they
demonstrated they believed the past was like the present (p. 4). They also found that the past
for most students consisted of disconnected and arbitrary events, and that only a minority seemedto possess a sophisticated understanding of history as a process of change and development.
One study that helped illuminate how novices, as well as experts, use history in reasoning
about civic and political issues was conducted by Voss, Greene, Post, and Penner (1983) and
focused on how experts and novices solve ill-defined problems in the social sciences. Though this
study sought to uncover the problem-solving process rather than the ways people use historical
knowledge, the outcomes revealed that the participants employed historical knowledge in their
analyses. The study asked participants to solve a problem related to crop productivity in the
Soviet Union. The participants, representing a range of domain-specific experience, were five
university faculty members and one advanced doctoral student with expertise related to the
topic; 10 undergraduate students, six of whom were in a course on Soviet domestic policy; sevengraduate students and faculty in political science but with expertise in Latin America; four faculty
from the chemistry department; and one member of the foreign service. They were all asked to
think aloud about the problem using only their background knowledge and a paper and pencil
to help them think through the problem if necessary. Voss and colleagues (1983) found that
one way the more expert participants employed historical analysis was to frame the problem by
using knowledge of the past to identify sub-problems and constraints complicating agricultural
productivity, and to construct causal relations between concepts, facts, and principles relevant
to the issue. The authors concluded that the experts causal explanations seemed necessary for
developing an argument about the problem and its potential solutions. The less experienced
participants in their study used historical analysis far less, and were not effective in using their
background knowledge in the problem-solving context.Causal reasoning was an important component for reasoning about political issues in an
expertnovice study by Jones and Read (2005) as well. They asked 36 people of varying expertise
to think aloud while reasoning about one of three topicsthe IsraeliPalestinian conflict, the
crises in the Soviet Union shortly after its break up, or apartheid in South Africa. They found the
expert participants in their study were more likely to employ historical analysis in explaining the
problem presented them, especially through causal reasoning. The typical expert would start with
the earliest historical aspect of the situation and describe how one event led to another in order
to tie together past, present, and future events. Jones and Read argued that the use of historical
information is a major characteristic of the noviceexpert shift in reasoning about a political
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318 SHREINER
issue, and that experts have an increased tendency to become a storytellerthat is, to employ
causal historical narrativesin explaining the nature of the political conflict.
The use of narrative in reasoning about the present also played an important role in a laterstudy by Mosborg (2002) that focused on analyzing high school students thinking as they read
daily newspaper articles. Mosborg found that, for students, the news articles elicited narratives
contrasting how things were back then and how things are now. Although Mosborg characterized
students narratives as about change and continuity rather than causation, the students still used
narratives like experts in the previous studies had to explain and frame the issue about which
they were reading. Furthermore, Mosborg argued that the events students referenced in their
reasoning process seemed dependent on what she called background narratives regarding the
concept of religious freedom at issue in the article; students referenced events in line with either a
narrative emphasizing that U.S. history has been about expanding religious freedom or that U.S.
history has been about straying from Christian heritage. Mosborg thus concluded that reading the
news became an occasion for self-expression, with historical references recruited as footnotesand illustrations in voicing a personal point of view.
Together these studies suggest that historical narrative is an important tool for framing and
reasoning about contemporary issues. By themselves, however, the studies tell us little about the
nature of peoples historical narratives, whether expert or novice. For this, we must turn to another
body of research.
Research on the Use of Narrative
Narrative is one of several sociocultural tools that people use to structure and make sense ofhistorical information (Barton & Levstik, 2004; Bruner, 1991). Bruner (1991) defined a narrative
as an account of events occurring over time, comprised of an ensemble of ways of constructing
and representing the sequential, diachronic order of human events. He added, What underlies
all these forms for representing narrative is a mental model whose defining property is its unique
pattern of events over time (p. 6).
Indeed, research has revealed that even very young children use narratives to give the past
meaning, trying to make connections between whatever information they have in memory in
order to produce accounts that hang together (VanSledright & Brophy, 1992, p. 851). How-
ever, students accounts, even when arranged in a narrative form, can also be fragmentary and
simplified. They might conflate information from various sources, or contain fanciful elabora-
tions (McKeown & Beck, 1990; VanSledright & Brophy, 1992; Wills, 2011). Such features ofchildrens narratives may be prevalent because of the multitude of sources from which children
acquire information about the past. Wineburg, Mosborg, Porst, and Duncan (2007) have pointed
out that students narratives do not emerge via spontaneous generation from some neurological
incubator (p. 44). They are influenced not only by the school curriculum (Wills, 2011), but also
by a team of players, including family members, movies, and television, all of which form
contemporary historical consciousness (Wineburg et al., 2007, p. 44).
Wertsch (2004, 2008) argued that there are in fact two levels of narrative in peoples historical
consciousness:specific narrativesand schematic narrative templates. The former are the focus
of history instruction in the schools and deal with mid-level events that populate textbooks,
examinations, and other textual forms found in that context (Wertsch, 2004, p. 51).
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USING HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE TO REASON 319
Constructing such specific narratives, argued Wertsch (2004), entails the act that grasps
together the detailed actions of . . . the storys incidents. It draws from this manifold of events
the unit of one temporal whole (p. 51). The schematic narrative templates, however, involve amuch more abstract level of representations and provide a narrative framework that is compatible
with many instantiations in specific narratives (p. 51). Such narrative templates, argued Wertsch
(2008), are concerned with general patterns rather than specific events and actors. . . . The
narrative templates can produce replicas that vary in their details but reflect a single general
storyline (p. 123).
Bruner (1991) also wrote of both general and detailed forms of narrative in peoples narrative
construction of reality. He characterized the more abstract or general form of narrative as
complementary to the detailed form, writing:
Narratives take as their ostensive reference particular happenings. But this is, as it were, their vehiclerather than their destination. For stories plainly fall into more general types: boy-woos-girls, bully-
gets-his-comeuppance, and so on. . . . In this sense the particulars of narratives are tokens of broader
types. . . . Particularity achieves its emblematic status by its embeddedness in a story that is in some
sense generic. And indeed it is by virtue of this embeddedness in genre, to look ahead, that narrative
particulars can be filled in when they are missing from an account. (pp. 67)
Although such scholarship suggests that both general narratives, or schematic narrative templates,
and detailed, or specific, narratives play a role in how people make meaning of the past, it is unclear
as to how people bring such narratives to bear on contemporary political issues. Furthermore,
although some of the studies I have discussed provide important insight into how people use
historical background knowledge to reason and solve problems, we have little research to provideinsight into the role historical knowledge, including historical narrative, plays in the reasoning
process when people are presented with a variety of information relevant to an issue. This is
unfortunate given that both students (see, e.g., National Governors Association Center for Best
Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010) and citizens are expected to deal with
a variety of information in everyday problem-solving and decision-making situations. This study,
then, explores the nature of historical knowledge people with varying levels of experience and
practice in the civic and political realm bring to bear on issues we face as citizens, and the ways
they employ such knowledge in reading and reasoning about a contemporary issue.
METHOD
The think-aloud method treats verbal reports of thinking as data, so that they are open to inspection
and interpretation by anyone (Newell & Simon, 1972; Someren, Barnard, & Sandberg, 1994). The
method has proved in other studies (e.g., Carretero et al., 1994; Wineburg, 1991) to be a useful
procedure for determining how experts and students think, and for observing the similarities and
differences between expert and novice thought processes. The participants for this think-aloud
were eight civically engaged political scientists and eight high school students. I asked them to
think aloud about the issue of bipartisanship in American politics while working with a variety
of documents. Specifically, I asked them to reason in response to the prompt: Should politicians
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320 SHREINER
work toward a spirit of bipartisanship? Or are the partisan divisions between the Democratic and
Republican parties actually a sign of a healthy democracy?
I chose bipartisanship as the topic because it has been a ubiquitous issue in the politicalrealm for at least the past decade. Partisan bickering of late has been a subject of concern for
American citizens, political scholars, and policymakers alike (e.g., Desilver, 2013, 2014; Pew
Research Center for the People & the Press, 2009), contributing to cries for solutions to the
perceived problem on the one hand, and defenses of partisanship as a healthy and normal aspect
of democracy on the other (e.g., Mansbridge & Martin, 2013; Rosenblum, 2010). At the time of
the study, the 2008 elections were approaching, making partisan differences and the potential for
bipartisan compromise particularly hot topics for discussion. Further, the issue of partisan politics
has a rich history that is often the subject of inquiry for political scientists (e.g., Aldrich, 2011;
Rosenblum, 2010), and has the potential to elicit thinking about government and the political
system, political parties, and the idea of democracy itself.
Participants
Political scientists served as the experts in the study because they are, by virtue of their Ph.D.
training and professional work, informed and knowledgeable about political and civic issues
such as bipartisanship. Six of the political scientists work concentrated on American govern-
ment and politics, while two of them on comparative government and politics. In addition to
being experts on political structures and processes, the political scientists participating in this
study were active and engaged citizens who have demonstrated, through their community in-
volvement, their interest in political and civic issues outside of academia. Each reported beinginvolved in two or more community organizations or activities, and in four or more recent
political activities, such as voting or engaging in a public debate (see Table 1 for experts
backgrounds).
The novices in this study were eight high school studentsfour 10th graders and four 12th
graders. Following the lead of other scholars who have designated high school students as novices
(e.g., Carretero et al., 1994; Wineburg, 1991), I assumed that the students would be unpracticed
in solving problems relevant to civic life. All the students in the study were recommended by
their teachers based on the following criteria: First, all were at or above reading level. If students
were not at a competent reading level for their grade, it might confound with how students were
using the text-based information. Another potential confounder was students knowledge base, so
a second criterion was that all students had completed civics or government and history courses,and had performed well. Third, all students had scored greater than the national average on pre-
test items drawn from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) examination in
civics and government, which teachers agreed to administer to students in their classes. Finally, I
asked that teachers select students they believed to be good citizens based on their participation
in the school and community. Four of the students were 10th graders who had just completed the
required civics course in their schools. Two students were from a suburban public high school, and
two were from a charter public school that drew from nearby suburban areas, as well as a major
urban and low socioeconomic area. The four remaining students were from this charter public
school as well, but were 12th graders who had completed required civics and history courses,
and were currently enrolled in an elective course on current events. A survey I administered also
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TABLE1
ProfilesofParticipatingPoliticalScientists
Political
Scientist
Research
Areas
Comm
unityMembership/Activity
RecentPoliticalActivity
David
-AmericanGovernment
andPolitics
-PoliticalPsychology
-PublicOpinion
-Impactofpedagogyon
students
civiccompetence
-Boardofd
irectorsforreligiousorganization
-Presidentelectforreligiousorganization
-Formerpresidentofuniversityreligious
organization
-Memberof
BoardofDirectorsforuniversity
religious
organization
-Voting
-Attendingapoliticalrally
-Contributingmoneyforapoliticalcause
-Writingletterore-mailinsupportofpolitical
cause
-Signingapetition
-Speakingpubliclyaboutapoliticalissue
-Engaginginapublicdebate
Alex
-AmericanGovernment
andPolitics
-PoliticalTheory
-PublicLaw
-BritishIdealism
-EducationalTheory
-AncientGreekPoliticalThought
-Elementary
schoolvolunteer
-Membershipinreligiousorganization
-Voting
-Volunteeringforacampaign
-Contributingmoneyforacampaign
-Contributingmoneyforapoliticalcause
-Engaginginpublicdebate
Kate
-AmericanGovernment
andPolitics
-GenderandPolitics/FeministTheory
-Researchmethodsandstatisticalanalysis
-Sociobiologyandfeminism
-Religiouso
rganization
-NAACP
-Cityplanningcommission
-Cityhistoricalarchitecturalpreservation
commiss
ion
-Variousvolunteeropportunities
-Voting
-Attendingapoliticalrally
-Volunteeringforacampaign
-Contributingmoneyforapoliticalcause
-Writingaletterore-mailinsupportof
politicalcause
-Signingapetition
-Speakingpublicly
-Politicalleadershiprole
-Engaginginpublicdebate
Rachel
-AmericanGovernment
andPolitics
-GenderandPolitics/FeministTheory
-Methods
-PoliticalPsychology
-Useofgenderinpolitic
alcampaigns
-SierraClub
-BikingClub
-Urbancom
munityorganization
-Voting
-Attendingapoliticalrally
-Contributingmoneyforacampaign
-Contributingmoneyforapoliticalcause
(Continuedonnextpage)
321
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TABLE1
ProfilesofParticipating
PoliticalScientists(Continued)
Political
Scientist
Research
Areas
Comm
unityMembership/Activity
RecentPoliticalActivity
John
-AmericanGovernment
andPolitics
-PoliticalTheory
-PublicPolicyandAdministration
-PoliticalTheology
-ReligionandPolitics
-CatholicSocialTeaching
-Religiouso
rganization
-Centerforcommunityleadership
-Voting
-Attendingapoliticalrally
-Contributingmoneyforacampaign
-Contributingmoneyforapoliticalcause
-Signingapetition
-Protesting
-Speakingpublicly
-Engaginginpublicdebate
-Writingmagazinearticles
Doris
-AmericanGovernment
andPolitics
-GenderandPolitics/FeministTheory
-Publicopiniononforeignpolicy
-Publicopinionandterrorism
-Gendergapsinpublicopinionandforeign
policy
-Nonprofito
rganizationdedicatedtothe
creationo
fparksandprotectionofland
-Nonprofitg
rouporganizinglocalmusic,a
rt
andheritagefestival
-Nonprofitinstituteforlife-longlearning
-Voting
-Contributingmoneyforacampaign
-Writingletterore-mailinsupportofpolitical
cause
-Signingapetition
-Speakingpublicly
Michael
-ComparativeGovernmentandPolitics
-LatinAmericanMigration
-DemocratizationandM
ilitarisminLatin
America
-U.S.
LatinAmericanR
elations
-BoardoforganizationservingSpanish
speaking
population
-Facultyrep
resentativeformulticulturalneeds
committee
-FormerPea
ceCorpsvolunteer
-Voting
-Writingletterinsupportofpoliticalca
use
-Petitioning
-Signingapetition
-Speakingpubliclyaboutapoliticalissue
-Politicalleadershiprole
Sharon
-ComparativeGovernmentandPolitics
-GenderandPolitics/FeministTheory
-PoliticalTheory
-Race,EthnicityandPolitics
-UrbanPolitics
-ComparativeIdentityPolitics
-Migration
-Howgroupsconstructbelonginginaneraof
globalization
-Humanrightsorganization
-Conservationorganization
-Foodcooperative
-Voting
-Attendingapoliticalrally
-Contributingmoneyforacampaign
-Contributingmoneyforapoliticalcause
-Signingapetition
Note.
Allnamesarepseudonyms.
322
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USING HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE TO REASON 323
revealed the school or community activities in which students were participating. The frequency
with which students read or watched the news on their own varied from almost never to every
day (see Table 2 for students backgrounds).
Documents
There were two sets of documents related to bipartisanship for the think-aloud session. The
first set consisted of nine documents that all subjects would read through in the same order to
aid in data segmentation and comparative analysis. I refer to these as common documents (see
Table 3 for descriptions of common documents). The set consisted of four types of documents:
background on the issue, survey data, opinion pieces, and newspaper articles. All represented
information both available in the public domain and subject to inquiry by political experts.Four of the common documents were adapted from an article on the Facts on File Issues and
Controversies website (Bipartisanship, 2008), which is a weekly updated database with print and
online references on current issues for high school and academic markets. It provided a wide
array of problems that could be used in this study and would likely be used by some practicing
teachers. Three other common documents were excerpts from viewpoint essays included in the
Gale Opposing Viewpoints database, which includes essays on current social issues written
by well-known columnists, scholars, and politicians. The last two common documents were
newspaper articles I found by searching the Newsbank Access World News database using the
keywords bipartisanship, bipartisan, partisanship, and partisan. Both articles provided
examples of bipartisan actions in Congress.
The second set of documents was one I told subjects they had the option to look through or not to
further address the problem. I refer to these as chosen documents (see Table 4). To aid participants
in making choices about which documents to read, I arranged the documents in folders titled,
background information, historical documents, and additional news articles. My purpose
for this portion of the think-aloud was to see how participants would choose and then use chosen
information to address the problem. The background information folder provided pieces that
might give subjects some historical grounding on the issue of bipartisanship. It consisted of three
other pieces from the Issues and Controversies on File article. The historical documents folder
held an excerpt from The Federalist, Paper Number Ten, by James Madison (1787), as well as
an excerpt from George Washingtons (1796) Farewell Address. These excerpts from primary
source documents were intended to provide subjects with additional historical perspective onbipartisanship by giving them access to the viewpoints of two of the nations founding fathers.
For my purposes, their reading of these texts could also provide insight into how subjects view
and use historical documents in reasoning through a problem. The third optional folder, titled
additional newspaper articles, could provide subjects with more information on current events
related to bipartisanship.
In addition to the document sets, I also provided a dictionary for high school students. A
pilot study helped me determine that a dictionary could help young readers pronounce and
define unfamiliar words that might otherwise negatively affect reading comprehension. However,
students were not required to use the dictionary and only one student did.
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TABLE2
ProfilesofParticipatingHighSchoolStudents
Student
Grade/Age
SocialStudiesClasses
Taking/Completed
Frequencyof
Reading/Watchingthe
News
Participation
Alfred
10th/16yearsold
-Civics
-Economics
-U.S.H
istory
Everyday
-Commu
nityvolunteering
Jenny
10th/15yearsold
-Civics
-Economics
-U.S.H
istory
Afewtimesperweek
-Commu
nityvolunteering
-Charity
work
-Culturalorganizationbasedonethnicity
-Academ
icclub
-Religiousorganization
Deborah
10th/15yearsold
-Civics
-Economics
-U.S.H
istory
Everyday
-Student
council
-Student
exchangeprogram
-Human
rightsorganization
-Commu
nityvolunteering
-Charity
work
-Academ
icclub
-Art,mu
sicordramaorganization
-Sportsteam
Karen
10th/15yearsold
-Civics
-Economics
-U.S.H
istory
Afewtimesaweek
-YoungUNgroup
-Commu
nityvolunteering
-Culturalassociationbasedonethnicity
-Academ
icclub
-Art,mu
sic,ordramaorganization
Marianne
12thgrade/
17yearsold
-Civics
-Economics
-U.S.H
istory
-EuropeanHistory
-CurrentEvents
Afewtimesperweek
-Student
council
-Student
exchangeprogram
-Commu
nityvolunteering
-Charity
work
-GirlScouts
-Academ
icclub
-Art,mu
sic,ordramaorganization
-Sportsteam
-Religiousorganization
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Tanya
12thgrade/18yearso
ld
-Civics
-U.S.H
istory
-CurrentEvents
Afewtimesperweek
-Youtho
rganizationaffiliatedwithpoliticalpartyor
union
-Schoolnewspaper
-Environ
mentalorganization
-Student
exchangeprogram
-Human
rightsorganization
-Commu
nityvolunteering
-Charity
work
-Culturalorganizationbasedonethnicity
-Art,mu
sic,ordramaorganization
-Sportsteam
-Religiousorganization
Rafael
12thgrade/17yearso
ld
-Civics
-Economics
-U.S.H
istory
-CurrentEvents
Afewtimesperweek
-Environ
mentalorganization
-Commu
nityvolunteering
-BoyScouts
-Culturalorganizationbasedonethnicity
-Sportsteam
Joshua
12thgrade/18yearso
ld
-Civics
-Economics
-U.S.H
istory
-CurrentEvents
Almostnever
-Student
council
-Commu
nityvolunteering
-Academ
icclub
-Sportsteam
Note.
Allnamesarepseudonyms.
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TABLE4
DescriptionsofChosenDocumentsforThink-AloudSession
DocumentSource
Description
Bipartisanship.(2008).Issues&ControversiesonFile.RetrievedfromIssues
andControversieswebsite.
ExcerptcalledTheEvolution
ofPartisanPoliticsintheU.S.
thatpro
vided
anoverviewofthehistoryofpartisanpoliticsinthecountry.
Bipartisanship.(2008).Issues&ControversiesonFile.RetrievedfromIssues
andControversieswebsite.
ExcerptcalledPolicyStatementsbytheDemocraticandRepublicanParties,
thathadexcerptsfromthepartieswebsitesregardingtheirpositionson
issueslikeimmigrationand
healthcare.
Bipartisanship.(2008).Issues&ControversiesonFile.RetrievedfromIssues
andControversieswebsite.
ExcerptcalledRecentKeyEvents,providingaselectedchronology
of
eventssince1992relatedto
theissueofbipartisanship.
JamesMadison,T
heFederalist,PaperNo.10
ThisexcerptfromTheFederal
istPaperswarnedofthedangeroffactionsin
government,characterizingthemashavingthepotentialtocause
instability,i
njustice,a
ndco
nfusion.
GeorgeWashingtonsFarewellAddress
Inhisfarewelladdress,W
ashingtonalsoarguedthatfactionispartofmans
natureandpassions,b
utthatthemischiefsofthespiritofpartyarein
needofconstantvigilanceandrestraint.
Araton,H.(
2008,F
ebruary14).Politiciansturnsteroidhearingintoapartisan
squabble.T
heNewYorkTimes,p.D
1(L).
Newspaperarticlethatcovered
thesteroidhearingforbaseballplayerRoger
Clemens.Ipurposelychose
anarticlecoveringastorythatmightbeof
morepopularinterest,
but
thatwas,n
onetheless,a
boutanissue
supposedlyinfluencedbypa
rtisandisagreementamonglegislators.
Lengell,S.(
2008,M
arch30).Election
shapingonHill-Democratspushbills
thatwontpasstooutlinedifferenceswithRepublicans.T
heWashington
Times,p.A
01.
NewspaperarticlethatDemocratswerepurposelypushinglegislation
that
wouldnotmeettheapprovalofPresidentGeorgeW.B
ushorother
Republicanstohighlightthe
irdifferenceswiththeopposingpartyinthe
presidentialelectionyear.It
providedacontrasttothenewspaperar
ticlesin
thecommondocumentsetb
ecauseitfocusedonpartisandifference
s,rather
thanprovidinganexampleo
fbipartisan-supportedlegislation.
327
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328 SHREINER
Think-Aloud Procedure
I gave the subjects simple, straightforward instructions, and told them not to explain or interprettheir responses. I did not tell them what information should be attended to, or what differences in
performance could occur (Someren et al., 1994). In accordance with the suggestions of Ericsson
and Simon (1993) I gave three practice problems to each subject at the beginning of the session.
Since thinking aloud is unnatural, previous studies (e.g., Wineburg, 1991) have recommended
and employed opportunities for subjects to practice, or warm up.
The think-aloud session consisted of five segments: (a) a report of prior knowledge, (b) a
concurrent think-aloud with the common documents, (c) a retrospective think-aloud with the
common documents, (d) a concurrent think-aloud with the participants chosen documents, and
(e) a retrospective think-aloud with the participants chosen documents. Each session lasted
anywhere between one and two hours. With wide variations within each group, time differences
seemed dependent on the participant and their particular style and pace, not upon their expertise.During the think-aloud procedure, I did as little to interfere as possible. Only when the subject
stopped talking for around five seconds or longer did I prompt him or her to continue.
In the first segment, I asked subjects to tell me what they already knew about the issue
of bipartisanship. Next, I gave subjects the common documents. Both political scientists and
students verbalized their thoughts while reading the documents on bipartisanship and addressing
the problem: Should politicians work toward a spirit of bipartisanship? Or are the partisan
divisions between the Democratic and Republican parties actually a sign of a healthy democracy?
In addition to the concurrent verbal report, I used retrospective reporting after the subjects read
through the documents, asking them to go back and talk more about what they were thinking
while reading and addressing the problem. Such reporting can be useful in learning why subjectsthought they were thinking something at a particular time, or to better understand parts of the
concurrent report that seemed incomplete or odd (Ericsson & Simon, 1993). In the third part of
the think-aloud session, I gave subjects the second set of documents and told them they could
choose to look at documents in the set or not. I then instructed them to think aloud throughout
the process of choosing and reading the documents. At the end, I again asked them to go back
and talk about what they were thinking.
ANALYSIS
I coded and analyzed all verbal data from the common documents session, but for verbal data
from the chosen documents segment, I only analyzed the documents used by at least 50% of the
subjects. All of these documents happened to be those that might provide historical perspective.
For purposes of comparison, I broke up transcribed data by paragraphs as they were represented in
the common and chosen documents, and highlighted all places where participants said something
in reaction to the documents. As I will describe below, I saw these statements as different
kinds of moves participants were making, and it was these moves that served as the units of
analysis for the study. After coding, which I describe below, I established interrater reliability with
an experienced qualitative researcher using transcripts from three political scientists and three
high school students. Initially, interrater reliability was 73% but we were able to resolve most
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USING HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE TO REASON 329
FIGURE 1 Average number of times students and political scientists referenced different kinds of knowledge during the
common documents portion of the think-aloud session.
disagreements through discussion, resulting in interrater reliability of 97% (Miles & Huberman,
1994).
My first round of analysis was aimed at highlighting the various references participants made
to other places in the documents they were reading or to background knowledge they possessed
outside of the document set. I combined a modified grounded theory approach (Auerbach &Silverstein, 2003; Strauss & Corbin, 1990) and content analysis (Neuendorf, 2002). The grounded
theory approach was modified in that it employed a mixture of predetermined and grounded coding
(Auerbach & Silverstein, 2003; Miles & Huberman, 1994). Based on my observations during
the think-aloud sessions, I developed descriptive, predetermined codes to note the kind of moves
subjects were making (Auerbach & Silverstein, 2003; Miles & Huberman, 1994) while reading
through the documents and reasoning about the problem. These moves included references to
another document, to a point within the same document, to the problem, to background knowledge
or experience, or reactions to information in the document (see Table 5 for examples of short-hand
codes for moves and their operational definitions). I then used a grounded approach to develop
codes for the types of information or knowledge participants were using, such as knowledge of
the source or knowledge of government (see Table 5 for examples of shorthand codes for types ofknowledge; Figures 1 and 2 also show the types of knowledge participants employed during the
different segments of the think-aloud). Out of this round of coding, I was able to identify segments
of the think-aloud where participants were referring to knowledge of history or information about
history, which then provided the subject of my next round of analysis.
In this next round, I organized segments coded as references to historical knowledge or infor-
mation and analyzed the content to determine the nature of the historical knowledge participants
were using. I found that, in addition to general statements about the history of political parties,
partisan politics, or American politics in general, there was also evidence of concepts that char-
acterize historical understanding, such as periodization, significance, cause, change over time,
and historical empathy. Realizing these were redolent of the second-order concepts identified
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TABLE5
SampleofCodesUsedtoDescribeParticipantsMovesDuringtheThink-Alo
udSessions
Code
OperationalD
efinition
Example(s)
S-D
Subjectsthoughtsaremovinginspaceto
anotherdocumentinthedocumentset.
Rachel:Okay,letssee,sowevegotabunchofdifferentdocumentshereaboutum,a
boutit,well
ImjustflippingthroughandImlookingatwhowrotethesearticlesandwheretheycamefrom.
Karen:So,andthenbackinthisone,thegraphthatsaysthatAmericawouldchooseamode
rate
Democrat...
S-P
Subjectsthoughtsaremovingbackinspaceto
theproblemasoriginallystated.
David:Imgoingbackandjustlookingattheoriginalquestion,i
fIcouldfindit.S
houldpoliticians
worktowa
rdaspiritofbipartisanshiporarethepartisandivisionsactuallyasignofahealthy
democracy
?
Marianne:Sobacktothebeginning,theissue,shouldpoliticiansworktowardthespiritof
bipartisanshiporarethepartisanship,o
rarethepartisandivisionsbetweenDemocratican
d
Republicanpartiesactuallyasignofahealthydem
ocracy?
T-K:H
Subjectsthoughtsaremovingintimeto
knowledgeofhistory.
David:...a
sIlookbacktothe50sRepublicanpartyandthe50sDemocraticpartyforthatm
atter,it
doesntstrikemeinretrospectasahorrificallypartisantime.CertainlyIwouldntputEisenhower
inasarem
arkablepartisanbut,ontheotherhand,d
ependsonhowearlyinthe50s...I
meanif
its50or51youretalkingaboutRepublicansupagainstTruman,t
heDo-Nothings80th
Congress,
whichwasverypartisan.B
utifyouretalkingabout53,
54,i
tsalesspartisan
period.
Tanya:Ithinktherehavebeenalotofcorruptthings
inAmericanhistorythatalotofpeopledont
talkabout.
T-K:SO
Subjectsthoughtsaremovingintimeto
knowledgeofthedocu
mentsource.
Sharon:SothispersonisattheHudsonInstitute,wh
ichIhappentoknowismoreofaconservative
place.
Rachel:SomeofthesenamesIrecognize,likeDavid
Brooks.IseehimontheJimLehrerN
ews
Hour.
T-C:BP
Subjectsthoughtsaremovingintimeto
conceptionofbipartisa
nship(i.e.,
ideaabout
whatbipartisanshipisandisnot,ordoesor
doesnotentail).
Rachel:Idon
tthinkworkingtowardbipartisanshipasanendinandofitselfisreallygoing
tosolve
anything.Ithinkbipartisanshipwillcomenaturallyaslawmakersneedtogetsomethinge
nacted.
Theywillhavetolooktobipartisanshipsupport,p
articularlyintheclimatethatitistoday
.
Rafael:Idothink[bipartisanship]isrealisticanditc
anchangethewayRepublicansandDe
mocrats
feelabout
eachother...
Note.
Underlinedletterscorrespondtothelettersusedforthecodelistedintheleft-handcolumn.
330
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USING HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE TO REASON 331
FIGURE 2 Average number of references students and political scientists made to different kinds of knowledge during
the chosen documents portion of the think-aloud session.
in literature on historical thinking (e.g., Andrews & Burke, 2007; Gaddis, 2002; Lee, 2005), I
categorized the passages as such (see Table 6 for examples of historical knowledge).
Another round of analysis for this study was aimed at determining how participants were
using their knowledge. Here I used a grounded theory approach (Auerbach & Silverstein, 2003;
Strauss & Corbin, 1990) and content analysis (Neuendorf, 2002). For the text-based documents,
more than 20 different grounded codes emerged, so I categorized them to help make further senseof what subjects were doing. I classified one set of codes as information-extraction reading
strategies, which subjects used to aid in understanding of the text and included summarizing,
paraphrasing, backtracking for clarification, and determining the authors purpose. I classified
another set of codes as evaluative reading strategies, which subjects used in determining the
value or merit of a piece of information. These strategies were similar to those described by Britt
and Aglinskas (2002) and consisted of sourcing, contextualizing, and questioning the author. I
also included choosing not to read something in this category because it seemed to be a product of
text evaluation as well (see Figure 3). I classified the third set of codes as reasoning strategies.
These included strategies for voicing an opinion, such as agreeing with the text, providing a
reason for agreement, disagreeing with the text, providing a reason for disagreement, expressing
a viewpoint (independent of what text was asserting), and providing support for the viewpoint.After coding all the transcripts using my grounded coding scheme, I counted the different
kinds of moves participants were making throughout the think-aloud with both common and
chosen documents. I then conducted two-tailed, unpaired Students t tests to see if there were
statistically significant differences between means. I tabulated data to compare the average number
of times subjects used information-extraction reading strategies, evaluative reading strategies, and
reasoning strategies while reading and thinking about the text-based documents throughout the
common documents session. In addition to performing two-tailed, unpaired Students t tests
to compare political scientists and students actions for each document, I performed one-way
ANOVA tests with a Bonferroni posttests to see if there were statistically significant differences
among the political scientists and students.
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TABLE6
ExamplesofConnectionsBetweenParticipantsHistoricalKnowledgeandItsUses
Typeof
Knowledge
Participant:Comment
UseofKnowledge
Document/SegmentofDocumen
t
Knowledgeof
Source
PoliticalscientistAlex:Washingtonsworried
aboutnarrow,privateinterestinsocietythat
servesitsownn
arrowinterestandnotthe
broadergood.
Commen
tontheauthorsmotivationfor
writingthedocument
WashingtonsFarewellAddress
HighSchoolStudentAlfred:George
Washingtonism
oreimportantbecausehe
wasourfirstpre
sident.
Commen
tontheauthorsposition
WashingtonsFarewellAddress
Narrative
Template
HighschoolstudentRafael:AsfarasIm
concernedAmericahasbeendividedasa
politicalparty,a
spoliticiansareconcerned,
anditwillprobablyalwaysbe
Evaluate
historicallygroundedclaimand
disagree
AfterfinishingtheSchambrapiece.
HighschoolstudentTanya:Americaasa
wholehasneverbeenunited.
Evaluate
historicallygroundedclaimandagree
Schambra(2006):Infact,p
oliticsfor
our
parentsgreatestgenerationwasju
stas
boisterous,n
asty,a
ndoverthetopasitis
todayindeed,a
sitalwayshasbeen,for
Americans.
Periodization
PoliticalscientistDavid:AsIlookbacktothe
50s...
itdoesntstrikemeinretrospectas
ahorrificallypa
rtisantime.
Evaluate
historicallygroundedclaimand
disagree
Schambra(2006):Letssteponthem
!
exhortstheearly1950sRepublicanelection
posterhanginginmybasement.
PoliticalscientistKate:Gayrightsand
feminismdidntreallyexistaspolitical
issuesuntilafterthe1960ssothats
oversimplification.
Evaluate
historicallygroundedclaimand
disagree
EvolutionofPartisanPolitics:[In]the
turbulent1960s,L
iberalsflockedtothe
DemocraticParty,whichadvocated
well-fundedfederalsocialprograms
and
championedotherso-calledprogressive
causes,s
uchasgayrightsandfemin
ism.
ChangeoverTime
PoliticalscientistDavid:Therewereno
politicalparties
atthetimeandIthink
Madisonwould
havebeencomfortablewith
theargumentthatpoliticalpartiesasthey
developedrepre
sentfactions.
Supportargument
FederalistNo.10:Theinstability,inju
stice,
andconfusionintroducedintothepu
blic
councilshave,i
ntruth,beenthemortal
diseasesunderwhichpopulargovernments
haveeverywhereperished...
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PoliticalscientistJohn:Communismand
NewDealismto
okplaceinacontextin
whichreallypeopledidthinkthatwewere
inakindofstru
gglebetweenthechildrenof
lightandthechildrenofdarknessandthere
weregoodreasons,Ithink,tobecautious
andcareful.CertainlyNewDealism,
FranklinDelanoRooseveltspolitical
philosophy,i
ssomethingthat,a
tthetime
was,I
think,immenselyimportantforthe
UnitedStates.Itcertainlywasnt
Communism.
Evaluate
historicallygroundedargumentand
agree
Schambra(2006):Letssteponthem
!
exhortstheearly1950sRepublicanelection
posterhanginginmybasement.Itfe
atures
thepartyspachydermwithhisfootplanted
squarelyontwosquirmingfigures,o
nea
mustachioedStalinlook-a
likelabele
d
Communism,
theotheraspectacled,
briefcase-totingbureaucratlabeledNew
Dealism.
Causation
PoliticalscientistDoris:Atthesametime,in
the1940swhile
thatwasgoingon,t
here
wastremendouspartisanshipandfighting
betweentheRepublicansandDemocrats
overtheriseoflaborandallthelawshad
beenpassedtosupportlaborunions.
Evaluate
historicallygroundedclaimand
disagree.
EvolutionofPartisanPolitics:Thatsp
iritof
cooperationhelpedU.S.p
oliticiansdesigna
coherentapproachtothechallenges
ofthe
ColdWararivalrybetweentheU.S.a
nd
SovietUnionthatlastednearlyhalfa
centurywithoutsufferingmanysignificant
partisanclashes.
PoliticalScientistAlex:Itsbeenthe
evolutionofthe
Democratsand
Republicans,th
edeathofalltheliberal
RepublicansandconservativeDemocrats,
thathasbroken
thepartiesup.
Frameth
eproblem
TheIssue:Mostpeopleagreethatthe
U.S.
governmentissharplydividedalong
party
lines.RepublicansandDemocratsoften
disagreeonhowtoresolvepressing
issues
facingtheU.S.t
oday.
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334 SHREINER
FIGURE 3 The average number of times students and political scientists employed specific types of evaluative reading
strategies, including the heuristics of sourcing and contextualizing, while reading text-based documents during the
think-aloud session.
To see specifically how historical knowledge was being put to use by the subjects, I used con-
stant comparative analysis with verbal data for both political scientists and students, connecting
the historical knowledge codes with the utility of movement codes, and analyzing the text to
which they were responding. This analysis allowed me to draw conclusions about how subjects
were using historical knowledge as they employed the aforementioned evaluative or reasoning
strategies. I then used content analysis to look across participants verbal data, noting patterns,
similarities and differences among political scientists, among students, and between political
scientists and students (see Table 6 for examples of how types of knowledge were used).
RESULTS
In the sections that follow, I discuss the participants perceptions of historys usefulness, and how
participants approached the documents in determining how useful they would be for reasoning
about the issue of bipartisanship. Next I discuss the nature of participants historical knowledgein use, noting both similarities and differences between experts and novices. I also explain how
participants were using their knowledge and those features of their knowledge that seemed most
usable.
Perceptions of Historys Usefulness
Both experts and novices in this study indicated that they viewed history as potentially useful
in helping them think about the issue of bipartisanship. When given the option of choosing
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USING HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE TO REASON 335
from a selection of historical and contemporary documents, all the participants chose to look
at documents of a historical nature first. Five out of the eight political scientists, for example,
began with either Washington or Madison and one reported that the only reason he did not choosethese documents was because he was already so familiar with them. The remaining three political
scientists chose the Evolution of Partisan Politics piece. The high school students made similar
choices, looking at documents of a historical nature before any other kind. Five out of eight of
them chose to look at Washington or Madison first, and the other three began with the Evolution
of Partisan Politics piece.
Despite the fact that both the political scientists and the high schools students viewed history
as useful in the reasoning process, the degree to which they actually used historical knowledge
and information was substantially different. All eight of the political scientists used historical
knowledge while reasoning through the documents whereas only three of eight high school
students referenced historical knowledge. This, of course, could be attributed to differences in
their knowledge bases. The political scientists serving as the experts in this study, not surprisingly,were more knowledgeable about bipartisanship, government, politics, and current events than the
high school students (see Figures 1 and 2). All the political scientists could provide a detailed
definition of bipartisanship and link it to ideas about partisan politics, political parties, and the
legislative process. On the other hand, three students initially reported that they knew nothing
about bipartisanship, or at least did not know the term bipartisanship, although it later became
clear that these students understood something about disagreements and efforts at consensus in
politics. The other five high school students could provide a basic definition of bipartisanship
as when political parties with differences or conflicts work to reach some compromise or
agreement.
The differences between the knowledge bases of political scientists and high school studentswere neither surprising nor unexpected. Indeed, their designations as experts and novices in the
study indicate my presumptions about differences in their experience and knowledge. The focus
of this investigation, though, was not to understand how much more knowledgeable or skillful
one group was than another, but rather to understand how participants of differing experience
reasoned with what knowledge and skills they possess, including how they approach information
with their knowledge and skills, as well as what aspects of their knowledge they found usable. In
what follows, I will discuss these findings.
Using Sourcing and Contextualizing Heuristics
When approaching documents provided to read through for the think-aloud session, the most com-
mon types of evaluative strategiesthat is, strategies to determine the value of a documentthe
political scientists in this study employed were sourcing and contextualizing (see Figure 3).
These are heuristics that researchers (e.g., Monte-Sano, 2010; Reisman, 2012; Wineburg, 1991)
commonly associate with historical thinking and problem solving. Some students also employed
sourcing heuristics while reading through the documents and reasoning about bipartisanship, but
the degree to which they sourced and the kind of sourcing they used differed markedly from the
political scientists.
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Sourcing
The political scientists sourced documents significantly more than the high school students(p-value= .0047; see Figure 3). Moreover, all of the political scientists used a sourcing heuristic,
while only three high school students did.
Not only did the degree to which political scientists and high schools students sourced the
documents differ markedly, but also the kind of sourcing that they employed. When the three
high school students who sourced documents did so, they attended to some combination of
the document date and type, and to what Britt and Aglinskas (2002) refer to as the authors
positionthat is, the occupation, position, or credentials of the author. Specifically, four out
of the eight students noted that Washington was the first president, deeming the document as
something important to read, and one of them explicitly noted that Washingtons Farewell
Address was from 1787, a long time ago.
Political scientists attended to these features as well, but they also attended to the document dateand type, to the authors position, and to what Britt and Aglinskas (2002) referred to as the authors
motivation (i.e., the possible reasons the author wrote the document) and participation (i.e.,
whether or not the author participated in relevant activities). Rachel, for example, made a series of
statements about Madison and Washington when reading the historical documents they authored.
While reading Madison, she said, If Madison didnt want factions he wouldnt have made it
difficult to get things done. I mean, he created three branches of government and that makes
things difficult to get done. Of Washington, she said, He doesnt mean parties the way we know
them today. . . . Washington was in a different time and didnt read Aldrich, [who wrote a book
on the origin and transformation of political parties]. Political scientist Doris also made a point
of Washingtons motivations, stating:
Washington of course is leaving government, just as the political parties are beginning to form and
certainly had nothing like we have today. And you wonder if what he wrote was tinged by the issues
of the time including the developing hatred between Adams and Jefferson who were surely to be
his successors. I mean I think the Congress at that time was, and the administration was, filled with
people whod been working for freedom for 20 years together and they were beginning to see some
really evil things. I mean after all, remember the duel with Aaron Burr; they saw some really hatred
evolving. But Im not sure that Washingtons comments would be the same in the light of the party
system that developed later.
Moreover, several of the political scientists made evaluative statements about the author or
document, stating their opinion of them and their value as a source. For example, in regards to
reading the Kinsley viewpoint piece, Alex stated the following in his retrospective interview:
I guess I was struck by the source . . . that we were moving into more political territory here with
Michael Kinsley, rather than with William Schambra. [T]hat struck me, I guess because I was looking
at who it was and that this fellow [Schambra] was from the Bradley Center, which I didnt read out
loud I guess. And I know Michael Kinsley from his other writings.
Rachel flipped through the common documents and said, [S]ome of these names I recognize,
like David Brooks. I see him on the Jim Lehrer News Hour. She then added, with a laugh, So I
dont know if that makes me believe him or not. Sharon read that William Schambra was at the
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Hudson Institute, and added, which I happen to know is a more conservative place, so I have
that in my mind even before I begin to read it. While looking at the graphic data, Alex saw that
that the data in the bar graph was gathered and presented by the Pew Research Center and stated,matter-of-factly, Theyre reputable. Likewise, David read Pew Research Center and associated
them with a reliable, solid methodology.
Of course, the political scientists background knowledge, whether of history or current events,
had an important influence on their tendency to source the documents they were reading. They
commonly recognized the names of the authors, whereas students only recognized Washington
and sometimes Madison. High school student Tanya, who regularly read the source information
at the top of the documents, always followed with some variation of I never heard of him.
However, while political scientists knowledge bases might have led them to demonstrate
that they were sourcing more often, political scientists also sourced when they had little or no
knowledge of a source. For example, Sharon indicated that she was wholly or partly unfamiliar
with several of the sources, but she still tried to gather some idea of what perspective the authorwas coming from by looking at was provided her in the documents. Of Michael Kinsley, she
read, . . . Whos a commentator and also described as a liberal pundit. She then added, So
this is interesting if this person is also defending partisanship but from a different political
perspective. Consistently, when political scientists were not certain about the source, they tried
to take what little knowledge they had and piece together some notion of the authors perspective
or bias. For example, Michael read that William Schambra is the Director of the Bradley Center
for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal at the Hudson Institute and said, . . . Which I think is a
conservative think tank. David read the name David Brooks and commented, David Brooks is
the Times columnist? I dont read the Times. He worked for the Wall Street Journal. I believe
Brooks is sort of the token conservative on the Old Gray Lady.It seems then, it was not entirely the political scientists content knowledge that led them to
source; they sourced regardless of knowledge to see if they could determine the reliability of the
source. Most students, on the other hand, were clearly not in the habit of sourcing information.
Indeed, most of them did not read the provided source information at any point in the process. In
some cases, by skipping the source entirely, they missed information that could have given them
some idea of the authors perspective. The beginning of the Kinsley piece, for example, described
Kinsley as a liberal pundit, which would have clued students into his political leanings. Yet,
the majority of students neglected to acknowledge source information before, while, and after
reading the body of each document.
Contextualization
If students relative lack of background knowledge contributed to their tendency to ignore
sources, it probably also accounted for the fact that they never provided or indicated that they
were trying to provide contextual information for the documents. Political scientists, on the
other hand, regularly contextualized documents, both historical and contemporary. For example,
looking at the pie graph, David commented, This is January of 07. Im trying to think what
was particularly salient then was right after Bush got his clock cleaned in the midterm elections
so, it certainly was part of a down cycle for him. Kate did something similar with the pie graph,
stating, Well, were a year out from the primaries and starting two years from the election.
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Both used their knowledge of current events to try to make meaning out of the information they
encountered. Again, however, political scientists also tried to contextualize even when they lacked
knowledge. Michael, for example, simply noticed that the survey data for the pie chart was from2007, over a year before he was looking at it, and said, 2007, that was quite a while ago so I
wonder what it would look like today. Kate dated the New York Timesarticle, saying, And that
was when, in April? April. And I dont know what has happened to that bill since then.
Although background knowledge likely influenced the degree to which participants used
sourcing and contextualizing heuristics while reading the documents, both political scientists
and students nonetheless used historical knowledge in the reasoning process. So what char-
acterized the historical knowledge participants used? As I will argue in the next section, the
historical knowledge participants used was structured as historical narrative, although the detail
and specificity of narratives differed markedly between political scientists and students.
Using Historical Narrative to Reason About Contemporary Issues
Both the political scientists and high school students in the study made references to what Wertsch
(2004, 2008) would call schematic narrative templates, or general statements characterizing the
history of politics in the United States. For example, high school student Tanya restated the same
basic storyline for American politics in several different ways, saying America as a whole has
never been united, Weve been trying to come together through all the presidents but were still
not close, and Weve been trying to come together for years. For her, the historical story relevant
to the issue of bipartisanship was simply that America was and always had been politically divided,
despite Americans best efforts to become more united. High school student Rafael referenceda similar story, stating, America has always been divided. High school student Deborah also
used historical narrative to some degree in the think-aloud, but hers was less a characterization
of the whole of American political history, and more about the difference between then and now.
She stated, simply, that They came together more back then [when Washington was president],
indicating that there was more bipartisanship then than nowa slightly less bleak outlook on
politics in the American history, but with some sense of decline over time.
Interestingly, these students had similar views as the political scientists, who also made such
general statements about the U.S. political past in the reasoning process. Like high school students
Tanya and Rafael, political scientists Michael, Alex, Rachel, John, and Doris stated that American
politics had always been divisive. And political scientists David and Kate had views similar to
those of high school student Deborah, who stated that partisanship had worsened over time.Yet, never at any point did the students provide detail to their stories; they did not mention
issues that divided political parties, how the views of political parties changed over time, or
examples of failed efforts to come together. Moreover, they did not provide any explanations as
to why divisiveness existed in the first place.
The political scientists, on the other hand, provided examples and explanations as to how
politics had always been divisive, or how it had worsened over time. Moreover, the details the
political scientists gave seemed to temper their views to some degree, creating less of a wholly
negative picture of the state of American politics than was conveyed by the students. For example,
the political scientists who stated that partisanship had always existed explained that the system
was just set up the way it was and it was not a majorly concerning problem. Those who arguedthat partisanship had gotten worse provided a clear cause for it worsening, which in some ways
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implied the possibility of solution. Kate, in fact, offered a detailed solution, describing how the
political parties had to sit down and agree on what the problem was.
Political scientist John serves as an interesting case to illustrate the use of detailed narrative inthe reasoning process. Because of the frequency of his historical references, I could piece together
a nearly coherent narrative of the evolution of partisanship in American politics. Consider, for
example, the story that is constructed by reorganizing Johns separate comments (with time
separation indicated by ellipses) in the following way:
[T]he system as its built was designed to make it very, very difficult for government to get anything
done. We set it up that way because we were afraid of government and we were fearful of majorities
doing too much damage in too short of a period of time. . . . There are lots of people who didnt
like each other on both sides of the aisle for 220 odd years in this country and that hasnt changed a
whole lot. . . . The rancor that we see today isnt nearly as bad as some of the rancor we saw, even
at the beginning of the Republic. And so, part of my sort of first impression is that [the argument thatpartisanship has become worse] is just a myth. Everybody thinks that its worse now than it used to
be, but if they went back and read speeches and looked at the way that people talked in newspapers
about one another and the kinds of things that were being said, I think theyd be shocked. . . . The
1920s, 1930s in this country were probably some of the most fascinating times to be alive in terms
of political ideas. You had people like Father Coughlin on the right, who had millions and millions
of listeners coming out of Michigan who was preaching a sort of fascism that we would associate
with Benito Mussolini. We certainly had supporters on the left of what was going on in the Soviet
Unioncertainly at least some Leninists and some Trotskyites, who were very, very excited about
the possibility of a revolution taking place in this country, and then we had all kinds of people in the
middle from Populists to Democrats and Republicans and Socialists like Eugene Debs. This was as
far from unity as we could possibly get. Its always funny to remember that Eugene Debs runs for
president from a jail cell as a Socialist candidate in 1920 or so and gets a million votes, right? And
so one of the things that I think we need to understand is that this was not a golden age of political
discourse but was actually one of the most rancorous and contentious periods in American history,
where almost anything was possible for better or for worse. . . . At the end of the day the greatest
generations politics were indeed much, much more interesting and radical in the sense of what was
possible as opposed to today where I think that while we have maybe a lot louder, a lot more oh, once
again to use the word boisterous or rancorous voices, at the end of the day there arent really any
radical voices at the table in the way that there were in the 30s and the 40s. Theres nobody out there
whos running as a Socialist, whos going to get a million votes. Theres no Fascist out there, even in
the electronic age, whos going to have 24, 25 million radio listeners to his broadcast every week and
so for me, of course, this is just one of those funny kinds of ideas that somehow its gotten worse.
By looking at the segments separately, one might not recognize the organization of bits of
information into such a nearly coherent whole, yet clearly he held such a narrative in his working
memory, and used it fluently in reasoning about the question of whether or not partisanship had
become worse.
How Experts Used Historical Narrative
Political scientist John used the segments of his seemingly complete narrative for different
purposes at different points throughout the think-aloud. Indeed, the political scientists in thisstudy used historical details for several common purposes while reasoning about the issue of
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bipartisanship, emphasizing different segments of the narratives at appropriate points in the
reasoning process. They used historical narrative to (a) frame the problem they were addressing,
(b) provide support for their own arguments, and (c) make sense of and evaluate historicalreferences made by authors.
Using history to fr