Thinking of Clio: the evolution of the historiographic conceptions of students of the first year of compulsory Secondary Education

Abstract

In this work, we have chosen to apply an active methodology to work on the contents and competences associated with historical thought. The aim of this research is to check how the historiographic conceptions of students in the first year of compulsory Secondary Education (ESO by its Spanish acronym), aged 11-12 years old, evolve. To do so, a multi-methodological strategy has been chosen. Firstly, a descriptive study was carried out to check the evolution of the students’ ideas and, later, a multiple case analysis was made to understand what aspects had influenced this evolution. The sample was a group of 23 students, who were given an initial and final questionnaire. Subsequently, three students were selected for the case analysis and underwent a semi-structured interview. The analysis and the results reveal a significant evolution of the students' historiographic ideas, having the development of historical thought as the main reference of the teaching-learning process.