Historical Skills

Presented By KM Holman
Introduction
 History is an academic discipline that concerns
itself with the past.
 The past is gone from sight and its records are

fragmented.
 This makes the very nature of history to be

abstract and different from current

happenings.
 For us to make meaning of the past requires a

different approach from the scientific approach

which relies on direct observation and
experimentation.
Introduction Cont d’
 Historical thinking skill was found to be suited for
this purpose.
 Historical thinking skill is a cognitive process
which assesses knowledge based primarily on
evidence and prevailing perspectives of the times.
 However, there exist discrepancies in how
historical thinking is conceptualized
Conceptualisation of Historical
Thinking
 Seixas (2007); 2015; Ercikan & Seixas, (2015)
are major proponents of historical thinking
skills.
 They outlining six procedural concepts that
they believe exemplify critical thinking.
 These concepts were developed out of
research into how historians think through
their craft and are intended to reflect the
behaviors of historians while encountering
historical evidence and creating historical
arguments.
Six Concepts of Historical Thinking
 These six concepts are:

1. Establishing historical significance

2. Using primary source evidence
3. Identifying continuity and change
4. Determining cause and consequence
5. Taking on historical perspectives
6. Acknowledging the ethical dimension (Seixas,
2007; 2015; von Heyking, 2004)
ESTABLISHMENT OF HISTORICAL
SIGNIFICANCE
ESTABLISHMENT OF HISTORICAL
SIGNIFICANCE
 The challenge as to what to include in the
teaching and study of history is a major one.
History include the past aspect of people,
places, tribes, nations, events, etc.
 Who determines what is important and what

is not?
 Is it a matter of personal interest or national

interest?
 These are very critical questions for

historians to answer.
Establishment of historical
Significance Cont’ d.
 To determine what is worthy, relevant,
important or significant depends on one’s
perspective and purpose.
 Historical significance is determined by the
ability of the event, people, tribe, nation etc.
to cause a great change over a long period in
the life of a people.
 The historian should be able to link the
historical happenings to larger trends and
stories that reveal something important to us
today.
Establishment of historical
Significance Cont’ d.
 The independence of Ghana is significant because is
caused a great change in the lives of Ghana. We move
from being ruled by foreigners to self-governance.

Partington criteria for determining historical

significance

 Partington (1980) argued that significance was a vital

element of historical education but that in order to
understand what it meant, it was vital to understand
what made an event significant, which was
dependent upon the following factors:
Importance
Partington criteria for determining historical significance

1. Importance – to the people living at the time

 The first criterion for determining significance

in history is how important that history was for

the people who lived the times.
 Historical events or happenings whether it

concerns a major battle, famine, monuments,

outbreak of disease, scientific invention,
treaty, personality etc. should have been
perceived as important to warrant it
preservation for posterity.
Importance Cont’ d.
 The enslavement of Africa for example, is
considered to be important by both the Europeans
and their African conspirators.
 The Europeans needed the Africans slave to work
their plantations. They equally need cheaper
sources of raw materials for their industries.
 The Africans also saw the slave trade as an avenue
to dispose off social misfits and rivalry
communities.
 Later, the slave trade became a source of revenue
generation for the purchase of weaponry for
territorial expansion.
Profundity
Profundity
2. Profundity – how deeply people’s lives have
been affected by the event.

 Profundity is concerned with the intensity of

effective of history on the lives of the affected
people.
 Using our earlier example of slavery, the

effect of slavery on the human race is yet to

be fathom particularly by the African race.
Profundity Cont’ d.
 It did not only rob the continent of the valuable
human resource needed to transform the
continent but it has robbed the African of his
dignity and pride as a human being.
 Africans are never contempt with themselves.
 The African is not respected anywhere in the

world not even on the continent of Africa.

 He wants to speak and sound like the white

man, their women cannot dress up without

attachment and accessories that make them
look like their colonial mistresses.
Quantity
Quantity
3. Quantity – how many lives were affected

 Quantity entails the scale, magnitude or how

wide spread the historical incident affected
people.
 So, basically it is about numbers.
 World War 1(WWI) was a global war

originating in Europe that lasted from 28th

July, 1914 to 11th November, 1918. It is often
referred to as the Great War.
Quantity Cont’ d.
 This war, led to the mobilization of about
seventy million military personal.
 About thirty nations were involved in this

war.
 The total number of military and civilian

casualties in the war was twenty million, with

about twenty three million military personnel
wounded.
 It is by far the largest and deadliest conflict in

human history.
Durability
Durability
4. Durability – for how long people’s lives have
been affected

 Durability is concern with the duration of the

effect of history.
 The aspect of human past that is considered

as significant should be something that has

affected the life of man for a considerable
period.
Durability Cont’d
 The aftermath of WW1 caused the downfall of
four monarchies; Germany, Turkey, Austria-
Hungary and Russia.
 The war made people more open to other

ideologies, such as the Bolsheviks that came

to power in Russia and fascism that
triumphed in Italy and even later in Germany.
 WWI largely marked the end of colonialism, as

the people became more nationalistic.

Durability Cont’d
 After the war one country after the other started
colonial revolts in Southeast Asia, the Middle
East and Africa.
 The war changed the economical balance of the

world, leaving European countries deep in debt

and making the U.S. the leading industrial power
and creditor in the world.
 Inflation shot up in most countries and German

economy was highly affected by having to pay

for reparations.
 There are many effects of WW1 but the summary

it that the world was never the same after WWI.

Relevance
Relevance
5. Relevance – the extent to which the event has
contributed to an increased understanding of present
life

 Relevance entails the contributions a historical

incident has made to our understanding of the world
we live in today.
 The formation of international regulatory bodies like

the United Nations, Common World, European Union,

World Trade Organization, etc. were formed to
mediate world peace and security, develop friendly
relations among nations and promoting social
progress, better living standards and human rights.
Relevance cont’d
 All these bodies were set up after the Second
World War to avert another Third World War.

 To establish historical significance

One needs to establish:
1. Importance
2. Profundity
3. Quantity
4. Duration
5. Relevance
Source Criticism(Primary sources)
Primary Sources
 Source criticism is the very core of history
education.
 The value of such an enterprise is said to be

that historical sources are the foundation on

which historical knowledge is built; without
them, there is no history.
 History differs from mere narratives, fables,

legends, etc. because of its dependence on

verifiable facts.
Primary Sources Cont’d
 The truth can only be ascertained by verifying
evidence because of the limitations of human
memory, potentiality of subjectivity,
falsification and bias.
 It is therefore, very necessary to introduce

history students to source criticism to equip

them with the requisite skill to explore
available sources, verify their authenticity of
sources, analyse perspectives and adding to
existing knowledge in history.
Primary Sources Cont’d
 In fostering this skill history teachers need to
find, read and analyze materials related to
the topics to be taught before providing such
materials to the students.
 This procedure suggests that the use of the

textbook and syllabus alone are no longer

enough to equip students with this skill.
What are sources?
Sources Cont’ d.
Good sources and bad sources
 Whether a source is good or bad is dependent

on the purpose for which a source would be

put to.
 If you want to know how native Africans

defended themselves in colonial courts, a

native’s narration of his or her experience in a
colonial court might not be a good source
because of the frailties of the human mind but
an ideal source might be court records in the
archives.
Sources Cont’ d.
Good sources and bad sources
 Again, if one is interested in knowing the

psychological benefits of ancestral veneration

a good source would be to talk to traditional
African worshipers instead off a Christian
priest who sees African traditional religion as
fetishism.
 The underlining principle here is that your

line of questions and knowledge about a

source determines it relevance.
Source criticism
 Historians Olden-Jørgensen (1998) and
Thurén (1997) outline some general principle
for historical source criticism.
1. Human sources may be relics (e.g. a
fingerprint) or narratives (e.g. a statement
or a letter). Relics are more credible sources
than narratives.
2. A given source may be forged or corrupted;
strong indications of the originality of the
source increases its reliability.
Source criticism Cont’d.
3. The closer a source is to the event which it
purports to describe, the more one can trust it
to give an accurate description of what really
happened.
4. A primary source is more reliable than a
secondary source, which in turn is more
reliable than a tertiary source and so on.
5. If a number of independent sources contain
the same message, the credibility of the
message is strongly increased.
Source criticism Cont’d.
6. The tendency of a source is its motivation
for providing some kind of bias. Tendencies
should be minimized or supplemented with
opposite motivations.
7. If it can be demonstrated that the witness
(or source) has no direct interest in creating
bias, the credibility of the message is
increased.
Source criticism Cont’d.
Two other principles are:
1. Knowledge of source criticism cannot
substitute for subject knowledge: "Because
each source teaches you more and more about
your subject, you will be able to judge with
ever-increasing precision the usefulness and
value of any prospective source. In other
words, the more you know about the subject,
the more precisely you can identify what you
must still find out". (Bazerman, 1995, p. 304).
Source criticism Cont’d.
Two other principles are:
2. The reliability of a given source is relative to the
questions put to it.
"The empirical case study showed that most people find
it difficult to assess questions of cognitive authority and
media credibility in a general sense, for example, by
comparing the overall credibility of newspapers and the
Internet. Thus these assessments tend to be
situationally sensitive. Newspapers, television and the
Internet were frequently used as sources of orienting
information, but their credibility varied depending on
the actual topic at hand" (Savolainen, 2007).
Questions for source criticism
The following questions are often good ones to
ask about any source according to the
American Library Association (1994) and
Engeldinger (1988):
1. How was the source located?
2. What type of source is it?
3. Who is the author and what are the
qualifications of the author in regard to the
topic that is discussed?
4. When was the information published?
Questions for source criticism
Cont’d.

5. In which country was it published?

6. What is the reputation of the publisher?
7. Does the source show a particular cultural or
political bias?
8. For literary sources complementing criteria are:
 Does the source contain a bibliography?
 Has the material been reviewed by a group of

peers, or has it been edited?

 How does the article/book compare with similar

articles/books?
IDENTIFICATION OF CONTINUITY
AND CHANGE
Continuity and Change
 Continuity and change is also referred to as
chronology by some historians.
 Historical thinking involves the ability to

identify the element of continuity and change

in historical events.
 It entails the ability to decipher what has

persisted over time with minimum alterations

and what has transform over time.
 Equally important is the identification of

turning points.
Continuity and Change
 A key point to consider in the study of
continuity and change is looking for change
when common sense suggests that there is
none and looking for continuity where it is
assumed there is was change.
 Judgments of continuity and change can be

made on the basis of comparisons between

some point in the past and the present.
 To assess continuity and change in history

requires a comparison over time.

Establishment of continuity and
Change
 Gerschenkron (1962) outline five factors that
are to be considered is establishing
continuity and change:

1. constancy of direction(the origins and

subsequent development or evolution of a
historical event or phenomenon)
2. periodicity of events (the element of time
honour in history);
Establishment of continuity and
Change Cont’d
3. length of causal regress (the duration of
which a change can be attributed to a
particular action or inaction)
4. stability of the rate of change (the possibility
to compute the rate of change and
accordingly to raise the question
regarding the continuous or
discontinuous
behaviour of that rate).
Turning Point
Identification of turning point
 The choice of specific time, dates, or periods

gives higher value to ones narrative, region, or

group than other narrative, regions or groups.
 The ability to establish historical periods is

dependent on what the historian considers to

be significant either politically, economic,
social, cultural or environmentally.
 Changing the periodization can change the

historical narrative.
Turning Point Cont’ d
 The historian is always conscious about how
circumstances and context might shape his or her
choice about periodization.
 Students of history should be familiar with different

ways the historian divides time into historical

periods and identify turning point in the past.
 For example Ghana’s history can be divided into

Pre-Colonial Ghana, Colonial Ghana and Post-

Colonial Ghana.
 Each period has a distinct history to tell and falls

within predetermined time periods.( AP U.S. History

curriculum Framework 2014).
Analysis of Cause and Consequence
Analysis of Cause and Consequence
 The historian’s role is to give an account of what,
how and why events in the past occurred as they
did.
 Causation may therefore be seen as a branch of
historical explanation used to answer these basic
questions.
 It is important for the historian not to only
establish cause but to demonstrate the connection
between one event and the other
Analysis of Cause and Consequence

 Establish the reasons for people actions and

inactions and the aftermath of those
decisions.
 Understanding that the actions of people in
the past have an impact on us today and
appreciating that our actions will have
consequences for future generations.
The Challenge of Establishing
Causality
 The inherent difficulty in establishing causality is
the challenge of selecting from what is often a
plurality of causes which may affect any single
event in the past.
 Carr believes that the true historian’s role is,
having assessed the causes of an event, to form
them into a hierarchy of importance.
 In establishing a plurality of causes, and then
forming them into a hierarchy of importance, the
issue of subjectivity, selection and value
judgements becomes pertinent as they reflect the
historian’s own unique interpretation of the past.
The Challenge of Establishing
Causality
Boddu (n.d) suggested a common sense
approach to historical causation. He outline
four criteria in establishing cause and
consequence:
1. assessing causal relationships within history
2. balancing the major concerns of plurality,
3. hierarchy, selection, determinism,
4. free will and chance in history as expressed
by historians.
Importance of establishing cause
and consequences
 It helps to make events in the past coherent
and intelligible.
 Comparison of historical events and issues

are made much easier.

 It enables predictions and generalization in

history.
 Historical perspective shapes current and

future developments.
Multiple perspectives
Multiple perspectives
 Multiple perspectives entail the ability to
describe, compare and evaluate various
worldviews on historical development within
a society, various chronological and
geographical contexts.
 Researchers have noticed that the willingness

to take another perspective can reduce when

an individual feels emotionally connected
with the topic (Barton & McCully, 2007;
Goldberg, Schwarz, & Porat, 2011).
Layers of perspectives
Wansink, Zuiker, Wubbels, Kamman, and
Akkerman (2017), have proposed a three layer
approach in considering multiple perspectives.

1. subjects positioned “in the past” (the time of

the event, phenomenon, or figure);
2. subjects positioned “between past and
present”; and
3. subjects positioned “in the present.
Layers of perspectives Cont’d
First layer
 The first temporal layer, in the past refers to
perspectives of subjects who are contemporaries
of the historical object.
 This means the first source of information is the
primary source.
 These are people, documents, relics that can be
traced to be closely associated to the object of
interest or the historical problem posed.
 Primary sources can be used to represent the
perspective of the constructor of the source.
Layers of perspectives Cont’d
First layer
 For example, to know the actual intent of the
freedom fighters in the struggle for Ghana’s
independence, letters or correspondence
between the leadership of the united Gold
Coast Convention (UGCC) or the educated
elites and the British authorities would
constitute an ideal primary source.
The second temporal layer
 The second temporal layer is termed “between
past and present,”
 This refers to perspectives of subjects that did
not live simultaneously with the object but that
succeeded the object in time and has somehow
been concerned with the historical object and
its interpretation.
 They could be views of historians, politicians,
journalists, or citizens who display their
interpretation and view on a historical object
because it relates to something in their own
time.
The second temporal layer Cont’d
 The second layer perspective taking is more
extensive and complex than perspective
taking “in the past.
 This is because using different historical
methods and sources used by the subjects to
reconstruct the past possess its own
limitations on the historian.
Third temporal layer
Views of the present
 In the present refers to the subjects who live

in the present and takes a contemporary

position towards a historical object or
interest.
 Although a clear distinction can be drawn

between the past and the present the

perspective that such subject brings to bear
on historical interest have the benefit of
hindsight knowledge or informed reflexivity
 Third temporal layer cont’d
 This third layer creates the connection between the
contemporary source and the present perspectives.
 It can include the insights shared by current
politicians, historians, journalists, or citizens
somehow concerned with the object.
 Another two groups that are important here are the
perspectives of teachers and learners.
 Teachers and learners alike ought to realise that
perspectives are personal and that teachers and
students themselves are consumers of history,
critically or uncritically accepting the constructions
presented by others or even making their own
constructions of the past.
Empathy and moral Judgment
Empathy and moral Judgment
 Historical empathy involves understanding how
people from the past thought, felt, made
decisions, acted, and faced consequences within
a specific historical and social context (Endacott,
2013).
 Historian Gerda Lerner states that meaningful
historical study, "demands imagination and
empathy, so that we can fathom worlds unlike our
own, contexts far from those we know, ways of
thinking and feeling that are alien to us. We must
enter past worlds with curiosity and respect"
(1997, 201).
Empathy and moral Judgment
 Empathy is in fact what defines the discipline of
history within the humanities rather than the
positivistic sciences: it is the creative leap that
must often be made from the documentary
evidence available to historians.
 Foster and Yeager also reject the definition of
empathy as the exercise of fanciful imagination,
and instead define it as "a considered and active
process," one that allows students to bridge the
gap between what is known from evidence and
what may be inferred given what we know about
the context of the time and individuals involved
(1998, 1­2).
The paradox of empathy
 The paradox of empathy, and its value in
developing historical understanding, is that it
involves confronting difference at the same time, it
recognize a common humanity that transcends
time.
 It allows us to recognize something familiar at the
same time acknowledging that times have changed
in profound ways.
 Ultimately it cultivates humility and prudence in
our attempts to understand people of the past,
essential qualities as we seek to make connections
among cultures and nations in the world today.
How to Establishing historical empathy

Endacott (2013) has proposed three interrelated

and interdependent ways of establishing
historical empathy.

1. Historical Contextualization
A temporal sense of difference that includes deep
understanding of the social, political, and cultural
norms of the time period under investigation as
well as knowledge of the events leading up to the
historical situation and other relevant events that
are happening concurrently.
How to Establishing historical empathy Cont’d

2. Perspective Taking
This entails understanding of another’s
prior lived experience, principles, positions,
attitudes, and beliefs in order to understand
how that person might have thought about the
situation in question.
3. Affective Connection
Consideration for how historical figures’
lived experiences, situations, or actions may
have been influenced by their affective
response based on a connection made to one’s
own similar yet different life experiences.
Conclusion
 Historical thinking skills is the process of
engaging the learner with the processes of
doing history. learners are encourage to
verify all sources and critique all
interpretations and perspectives. However,
they are to take the socio-cultural, religious,
political and economic influences of historical
issues into consideration.