THE EFFECTS OF PLAYING HISTORIAN ON LEARNING IN HISTORY

The present study investigates conditions under which undergraduates m ay adopt a view of history more similar to that of historians and how learning and understanding may be affected under such conditions. Two manipulations, one of the reading material and the other of writing ta sk, were introduced within the standard 'read-to-write' approach of hi story instruction. Undergraduates were either given a textbook chapter about Ireland between 1800 and 1850, or the same information in the f orm of separate sources. After reading the presented material they wer e instructed to write a history, a narrative or an argument regarding what produced the significant changes in Ireland's population between 1846 and 1850. It was expected that the separate source/argument writi ng condition would yield the most historian-like behaviour. Indeed, st udents in this condition learned the material as well as, or better th an, students in any other condition, but had the best understanding of the material, especially of causal and explanatory relationships.