ABSTRACT
A ‘reproducing the past’ orientation was remarkably more prevalent among science award winners (mean 87.64; SD 8.51; range 71.43-100) than among their historically trained peers (mean 19.99; SD 9.97; range 11.11-32.56). Conversely, history award winners were, on average, considerably more likely to exhibit an ‘organizing the past’ view of historical inquiry (mean 80; SD 9.97; range 67.44-88.89) than their science-oriented counterparts (mean 12.36; SD 8. 51; range 0-28.57). These results strongly support the hypothesis that students in my sample who had been substantively trained in history would be more likely to characterize historical inquiry as guided by narrative and explanatory structures and geared to making the past intelligible to present audiences. In contrast, characteristic of students who had had substantive scientific training was a view of historical inquiry as a progressive accumulation of portraits of the past depicted as it really happened-a view in which objectivity, accuracy and completeness were the paramount criteria against which to assess accounts.
