Abstract:
This paper will explore impact of digital learning settings, and their associated social practices, on an individual’s historical thinking (Wineburg, 1991). The rationale is underpinned by assumption that information transfer between print and digital mediums is not a neutral process, and that digital learning tools serve as carriers of patterns of knowledge known as Digital Epistemologies (Lankshear & Knoble, 2006), which stand in marked contrast to the critical understandings associated with historical thinking, providing theoretical warrant for an investigation into its potential impact.
Data was generated via qualitative interviews where novice (student) and expert (historian) participants were asked to evaluate historical content embedded within different types of website. A discursive analysis was undertaken using a neo-Vygotskian conceptual framework (Wertsch, 1991) focussing on social languages, the mediational tool kit, and privileging practices. Using a Wertschian framework, it was theorised that participants would have at least two sets of evaluative criteria available to them (formal and informal), and that these would exist in a state of epistemic tension during participant evaluation.
It was found that when evaluating historical content online, participants appeared to be using a hybridised adaptation of the historical thinking heuristics identified by Wineburg (1991) and the informal digital heuristics identified by Metzger, Flanagin and Medders (2010), and that these two ‘evaluative discourses’ existed in tension, producing multiple, conflicting, notions of website credibility. This tension appeared to impede participants’ critical historical thinking, and an association was identified between discursive tension and school-based understandings of website credibility and evaluation.
A second aim was to identify key features of expert practices, and it was found that the historians engaged in a process termed ‘formalisation’, where informal web-based heuristics were adapted for critical disciplinary purposes. The paper will conclude by proposing models of expert practice and historical thinking online, and outlining a framework by which student evaluation might be formalised to better reflect the critical practices of experts.
Data was generated via qualitative interviews where novice (student) and expert (historian) participants were asked to evaluate historical content embedded within different types of website. A discursive analysis was undertaken using a neo-Vygotskian conceptual framework (Wertsch, 1991) focussing on social languages, the mediational tool kit, and privileging practices. Using a Wertschian framework, it was theorised that participants would have at least two sets of evaluative criteria available to them (formal and informal), and that these would exist in a state of epistemic tension during participant evaluation.
It was found that when evaluating historical content online, participants appeared to be using a hybridised adaptation of the historical thinking heuristics identified by Wineburg (1991) and the informal digital heuristics identified by Metzger, Flanagin and Medders (2010), and that these two ‘evaluative discourses’ existed in tension, producing multiple, conflicting, notions of website credibility. This tension appeared to impede participants’ critical historical thinking, and an association was identified between discursive tension and school-based understandings of website credibility and evaluation.
A second aim was to identify key features of expert practices, and it was found that the historians engaged in a process termed ‘formalisation’, where informal web-based heuristics were adapted for critical disciplinary purposes. The paper will conclude by proposing models of expert practice and historical thinking online, and outlining a framework by which student evaluation might be formalised to better reflect the critical practices of experts.