A Study On the Impact of Teaching Improvement on the Ability to Explain Historical Concepts

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of an instructional improvement program on learners' ability to explain historical concepts through a quasi-experimental approach. Two units were considered, “British Industrial Revolution that Affected the World” (teacher-centred instruction) and “The Birth and Spread of Marxism” (student-centred instruction), and the pre-test and post-test performance of 76 high school students in Shenzhen, China, on three dimensions of richness, relevance, and structure were compared. The results showed that student-centred instruction significantly improved conceptual understanding in the unit “The Birth and Spread of Marxism” (p < 0.05), with significant enhancements in richness, relevance, and structure. In contrast, teacher-centred instruction in the unit “British Industrial Revolution that Affected the World”, combined with prior learning, did not show any statistically significant enhancement (p > 0.05), as expected from cognitive load theory, which emphasizes novelty to support deep learning. The results highlight the importance of instructional strategies to foster deep critical thinking in history instruction. This study provides empirical support for curriculum reforms that favour student-centred practices and has implications for combining instruction with prior learning in history instruction.