ABSTRACT
Conceptual change has been given less empirical attention in historical knowledge than in the natural sciences. As a matter of fact, in the previous edition of this Handbook there was only one chapter devoted to this topic (Leinhardt & Ravi, 2008). This is clearly a consequence of the fewer cognitive studies about historical knowledge compared to those concerning natural science. However, research about history and students’ knowledge has improved much in recent years and there is nowadays a clear interest in the topic. Insightful research projects have been going on, as it can be seen in previous reviews (Barton, 2008; Limón, 2002; VanSledright & Limón, 2006; Voss & Wiley, 2006).
