ABSTRACT
Research on students’ ideas about history has been an active eld of investigation in recent decades. Over 200 empirical studies have been published since the late 1970s by scholars in a variety of countries, and this literature has included contributions from researchers in elds such as reading, educational psychology, and social studies and history education. Perhaps because of their differing disciplinary and national backgrounds, however, researchers have not always fully incorporated the ndings of previous studies into their own work, and this has hindered a more comprehensive understanding of the development of students’ ideas. Yet despite researchers’ varied backgrounds and despite disagreements over the proper aims of history education-even over the very nature of history and historical thinking-this body of work has resulted in several consistent ndings. This review summarizes results from key lines of inquiry within the eld and suggests potentially productive areas for future research.
