- Title
- History teachers’ disciplinary and pedagogical reasoning and the empirics of classroom pedagogy in Ghana
- Creator
- Boadu, Gideon
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2020
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- What teachers believe and do are important determinants of students’ learning and understanding. In History education, research shows that an inquiry approach to the subject enhances students’ acquisition of domain-specific thinking skills in history (Keskin, Keskin, & Kırtel, 2019; Wineburg, 2001, pp. 28-29). History teaching in Ghana aims to equip students with the skills of sourcing, corroboration, and context-based analysis and interpretation of evidence (Ministry of Education, 2010). This suggests that students are to be actively engaged in constructing their understandings of history. However, while the benefits of the constructivist approach to School History is acknowledged (e.g. Cooper, 2015; Maloy & LaRoche, 2010), evidence from the classroom about the enactment of this mandate is limited in Ghana. Hence, drawing on constructivist epistemology, the object of this research project was to investigate Ghanaian History teachers’ conceptions of history, their views of the purpose of school History, their planning and classroom practices, and the constraints on practice. The research employed an interpretative epistemological positioning which allows multiple subjective realities to be constructed through the meanings participants derive from their experiences. To give voice to teachers’ reasoning and practices, an interpretative phenomenological research design was employed to explore and interpret the nuances and richness of how participants make sense of their experiences, in both reason and practice. Data from in-depth interviews, lesson observations, post-lesson follow-up interviews, and teachers’ portfolio documents collected from 15 public senior high schools in the Central Region, Ghana, was used to explore this issue. The data was coded, categorised, and developed into themes. Findings show that participants conceive of history as a dialogue between the past, the present, and the future. Further, they possess a constructionist orientation to history as they recognise the constructive and verificative role of historical evidence yet acknowledge the interpretative intervention of historians in their engagement with evidence. Concepts such as historical significance, evidence, cause and effect, change, and human agency undergird participants’ disciplinary reasoning. The purposes of school History are expressed in predominantly domain-specific goals such as the acquisition of analytic and interpretation skills, evidential reasoning, and ethical judgments. Added to these are nationalistic goals of patriotism and social harmony. In terms of pedagogy, consideration of the school context, curriculum, and students’ knowledge and abilities feature prominently in participants’ planning decisions and actions. However, it was found that only a few participants used written lesson plans. Significantly, despite recognition of the applicability of constructivist approaches to History, classroom practices show a wide adoption of narrative approaches to History teaching. The research concludes that there is a dissonance between participants' reasoning and practices and such factors such as lack of institutional support, lack of resources, the nature and scope of the History curriculum, and accountability pressures act as constraints on constructivist practice in Ghana. This research contributes to the international scholarly literature on History teaching and furnishes an understanding of the Ghanaian situation.
- Subject
- history teaching; disciplinary reasoning; pedagogical reasoning; pedagogical practice; Ghana
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1418280
- Identifier
- uon:37322
- Rights
- Copyright 2020 Gideon Boadu
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 4 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Abstract | 412 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |