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Using Historical Knowledge to Reason

About Contemporary Political Issues: AnExpertNovice StudyTamara L. Shreiner

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University of MichiganPublished online: 30 Sep 2014.

To cite this article:Tamara L. Shreiner (2014) Using Historical Knowledge to Reason AboutContemporary Political Issues: An ExpertNovice Study, Cognition and Instruction, 32:4, 313-352, DOI:

10.1080/07370008.2014.948680

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COGNITION AND INSTRUCTION,32(4), 313352, 2014Copyright C Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 0737-0008 print / 1532-690X onlineDOI: 10.1080/07370008.2014.948680

Using Historical Knowledge to Reason AboutContemporary Political Issues: An ExpertNovice Study

Tamara L. Shreiner

University of Michigan

People often justify historys place in the curriculum by its relationship to citizenship, yet there is

little research to help educators picture how people use historical knowledge for civic purposes.

This expertnovice study used the think-aloud method to examine how eight political scientists and

eight high school students employed historical knowledge to reason about a political issue. Findings

indicated that detailed historical narrative played an important role for experts reasoning, and the

experts used narrative to frame the issue, support their positions, and evaluate historical claims.

Participating students used narrative as well, but their narratives were lacking in detail. They never

used history to frame the problem, contextualize documents, or to support their positions, and they

rarely used narrative to evaluate claims. These differences in how experts and novices use history to

make sense of the present have implications for history instruction and research in history and civic

education.

INTRODUCTION

Since the beginning of public education in the United States, scholars, educators, and policymakers

have argued that historical knowledge is central to civic competence, and have often justified

historys place in the curriculum in relationship to citizenship (Barton & Levstik, 2004; Gould,

Jamieson, Levine, McConnell, & Smith, 2012). In 1898, an American Historical Association

committee charged with defining history within the school curriculum reported that historical

studies could provide students with the mental equipment for a comprehension of the political

and social problems that will confront [them] in everyday life, as well as practical preparation

for social adaptation and for forceful participation in civic activities (p. 18). And over a century

later, in 2000, federal legislators set out to establish the role of history in Americans education

with a Sense of the Senate Resolution calling for more and better history instruction in the

schools in order to improve civic memory (U.S. Senate, 2000). More recently, the Common

Core State Standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of

Chief State School Officers, 2010) have raised questions about how historical literacy practices,

in conjunction with reading and writing skills developed through other disciplines, might help

Correspondence should be addressed to Tamara L. Shreiner, Department of History and Social Science, Greenhills

School, 850 Greenhills Drive, Ann Arbor, MI 48105. E-mail: [email protected]


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314 SHREINER

students reflexively demonstrate the cogent reasoning and use of evidence that is essential to

both private deliberation and responsible citizenship in a democratic republic (p. 3). Indeed,

The College, Career and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards(NationalCouncil for Social Studies, 2013) recommends that upon graduating high school students are able

to use multiple disciplines to understand and reason about local, regional, and global problems,

and then make decisions and take action in multiple contexts.

Implicit in arguments about historys importance for citizenship is that citizens must not only

know history, but also must be able to effectively use history to reason about issues within the

civic domain. Democratic citizens should be able to apply knowledge of the history of American

democracy when considering laws and acts of government (Campaign for the Civic Mission of

the Schools, 2012), evaluate the historically grounded justifications used by policymakers and

government officials (Barton & Levstik, 2004), and use historical precedents and analogies to

inform their own positions and actions (Barton & Levstik, 2004). Further, citizens should be able

to use historical knowledge to reason about complex civic and political issues, and in democraticpractices ranging from group problem solving to protesting to voting (Carnegie Corporation of

New York & CIRCLE, 2003; Lupia & McCubbins, 1998). Schools, as the assumed guardians of

democracy and the institutions best equipped to foster these necessary competencies (Campaign

for the Civic Mission of the Schools, 2012), are expected to help students not only learn history,

but also learn how to use historical knowledge in their civic roles.

If educators hope to prepare students to use historical knowledge to reason for civic purposes,

they need a picture of what such reasoning should like in practice, as well as an understanding of

the challenges students might face in choosing and applying relevant historical knowledge to the

kinds of issues and problems they will face as citizens. This study aims to provide such a picture.

It focuses on how people with differing levels of expertise in the political domain use historicalknowledge to reason about contemporary political issues. Unlike other expertnovice studies that

have intended to better understand historical knowledge and its uses for understandings about

the past (e.g., Lee & Ashby, 2000; Lee & Shemilt, 2009; Rouet, Favart, Britt, & Perfetti, 1997;

Wineburg, 1991), I aim to understand how people use history to make sense of issues they face in

the present. To that end, I asked eight civically engaged political scientists and eight high school

students to think aloud while reasoning about a prevalent and contentious political issue at the

timebipartisanship in U.S. politicsand reading across a variety of primary and secondary

texts relevant to the issue. I chose to use political scientists rather than historians as the experts

in this study because analysis of contemporary public policies and processes, as well as issues

like bipartisanship (American Political Science Association, 2013), are focal points of political

scientists work, and because political scientists often employ a historical perspective to makesense of current issues (e.g., Aldrich, 2011; Rosenblum, 2010). Design and analysis for this study

focused on the following questions:

How do people with expertise in the political domain use historical knowledge to reason about

contemporary civic issues? What are the similarities and differences in the knowledge that

experts employ and those that high school students employ?

What is the nature of the historical knowledge participants of differing expertise use when

reasoning about civic issues? That is, what makes their knowledge usable?


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USING HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE TO REASON 315

Based on my findings, I argue that history does indeed play a valuable role in students civic

education, but that we cannot assume that simply learning history will provide students with the

tools they need to apply it to contemporary issues. Like several scholars of history education(e.g., Foster, Ashby, & Lee, 2008; Lee, 2005; Shemilt, 2009), I argue that students must acquire a

usable knowledge of history, but I also offer a picture of what constitutes usable knowledge in the

political domain and how it is that people use such knowledge as they reason about contemporary

issues.

BACKGROUND

ExpertNovice Studies on Historical Understanding

Expertnovice studies attempt to understand the thinking underlying the skilled performancesof experts, contrasting it with the thinking of novices who do not perform at a sophisticated

level. Such studies play a valuable part in educational research because they help to explicate

the range of thinking in a given domain from naive to sophisticated so educators can design

instruction that will help students achieve the understanding needed to move from school per-

formance to performance in the world (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Fiske, Kinder, &

Larter, 1983). Over several decades, researchers in math, science, and history have described the

cognitive aspects in their respective disciplines by studying the thinking of experts, those who

truly understand, and contrasting it with the thinking of novices, those who are relatively inex-

perienced in the particular discipline under investigation. Such scholarship reveals that experts

have domain-specific knowledge and discipline-specific heuristics that characterize sophisticatedhistorical, mathematical, and scientific thinking (Bransford et al., 2000; Gardner, 1991). Experts

appropriately apply their knowledge and habits of mind in new situations, whereas novice learners

tend to master the literacies, concepts, and disciplinary forms of schools, but often fall back on

immature, misconceived ideas when removed from the context of the classroom (Gardner, 1991,

pp. 67).

Expert studies in the domain of history, for example, reveal that historians possess usable

knowledge (Donovan & Bransford, 2005, p. 9) organized around substantive historical concepts

like the Industrial Revolution and the Civil Rights Movement, as well as second-orderhistorical

concepts like evidence and significance that lie behind the production of the actual content

or substance of history (Lee, 2005, p. 32). By comparing such sophisticated thinking with

the thinking of children and adolescents, scholars interested in picturing a range of historicalthinking have begun to illuminate expertnovice differences in understanding of both substantive

and second-order historical concepts (e.g., Blow, 2011; Lee, 2005; Lee & Shemilt, 2004, 2009;

Wineburg, 1991). Over the past three decades, there has been a wealth of studies that help us

to better understand what children and adolescents know about substantive historical concepts

like the state, government, and war (e.g., Berti, 1994; Brophy & Alleman, 2006; Lee, 2005);

and to compare experts and novices understanding of second-order concepts like causes and

consequences (e.g., Carretero, Jacott, Limon, Lopez-Manjon, & Leon, 1994; Lee & Shemilt,

2009), change over time (e.g., Blow, 2011; Lee, 2005), evidence (e.g., Lee, 2005; Shemilt,

1987), accounts (e.g., Lee & Ashby, 2000; Lee & Shemilt, 2004), significance (Seixas, 1994,

1997), and historical empathy (e.g., Lee, 2005; Lee & Shemilt, 2011). Research in these areas


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316 SHREINER

has been abundant enough that scholars are able to provide detailed models for progressions

in understanding from novice to sophisticated, revealing important turning points in students

understanding, as well as the misconceptions or incomplete understandings they may have atdifferent levels (e.g., Lee & Ashby, 2000; Lee & Shemilt, 2004, 2009).

Some research has also provided insight into how historians and students use historical

knowledge for historical purposesthat is, how people with differing levels of historical ex-

pertise approach and reason with historical texts (e.g., Rouet et al., 1997; Stahl, Hynd, Britton,

McNish, & Bosquet, 1996; Wineburg, 1991), and how they write in response to historical ques-

tions (e.g., Monte-Sano, 2010; Rouet et al., 1997). For example, Wineburg (1991) studied eight

historians and eight high school students as they puzzled aloud about a historical problem while

reading through texts that might serve as evidence. He found that the historians regularly used

a sourcing heuristic, reading and analyzing who wrote the document and when the document

was written before they read the actual text. Wineburg also argued that historians understood

the primary source documents they were reading by using a contextualizing heuristic, or re-constructing the social context in which the texts occurred, and by analyzing the intentions and

motivations of the authors. Furthermore, the historians worked through the documents as if they

were prosecuting attorneys, corroborating information by putting them side-by-side and locat-

ing discrepancies. The high school students in Wineburgs study, however, failed to question the

texts in the ways the historians did. They did not read the texts to consider the authors intentions

or to situate texts in the social context, but only to gather information. They saw the author-

itative textbook excerpts Wineburg provided them as the most reliable because they just gave

straight information, and they rarely compared accounts, becoming flustered when they faced

contradictions.

A later study by Britt and Aglinskas (2002) provided further insight into how novices use thesourcing heuristics identified by Wineburg (1991) by describing features of sourcing to which

novices are more likely to attend. These features include the authorsposition, meaning his or her

occupation or credentials; the authors motivation, or the possible reasons the person may have

written the document; or the authors level ofparticipation, indicating if they knew the person

was a participant in the activities or not. Some students in Britt and Angliskas study also offered

an author evaluation, stating their opinion of the author. In addition, the students sometimes

mentioned the date or time period in which the document was written, the document type (e.g.,

a textbook or autobiography), or they made a statement evaluating the type of document it was.

Though these elements of sourcing seemed to be relatively easy for novices to apply, Britt and

Aglinskas concluded that students in both high school and college are nevertheless unlikely to

spontaneously apply them, and that even students who are competent at citing a source maystill not fully appreciate the document and author features that go into the selection of a source

(p. 495). After studying students who worked with an online application designed to encourage

sourcing, however, Britt and Aglinskas resolved that students will develop historical literacy

skills like sourcing with appropriate and sustained instruction and that document-level skills are

generalizable to other domains that use documents as evidence and involve arguments to support

theories (p. 512).

Although such research provides valuable information about differences in peoples historical

knowledge and skills, there is yet little research on how people use their historical knowledge

outside the domain of history. The next section highlights some notable exceptions.


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Research on Using History to Reason About Civic or Political Issues

In a longitudinal study of 47 high school students in London schools, Foster et al. (2008)investigated how students think about the past and use their historical frameworks to make sense

of their place in the world (p. 2). The problem the researchers gave students to consider in

the study was whether or not the United States would remain the most powerful nation in the

world. Although this study did not ask students to use history to grapple with a civic or political

issue per se, it did consider how students used historical knowledge to connect past, present,

and future. Using data from writing samples and interviews, the researchers concluded that the

majority of students did not instinctively draw on historical knowledge to inform contemporary

and future perspectives. Further, they found that most students talked only about the present

as they reasoned about the issue, or talked about a backward projected present in which they

demonstrated they believed the past was like the present (p. 4). They also found that the past

for most students consisted of disconnected and arbitrary events, and that only a minority seemedto possess a sophisticated understanding of history as a process of change and development.

One study that helped illuminate how novices, as well as experts, use history in reasoning

about civic and political issues was conducted by Voss, Greene, Post, and Penner (1983) and

focused on how experts and novices solve ill-defined problems in the social sciences. Though this

study sought to uncover the problem-solving process rather than the ways people use historical

knowledge, the outcomes revealed that the participants employed historical knowledge in their

analyses. The study asked participants to solve a problem related to crop productivity in the

Soviet Union. The participants, representing a range of domain-specific experience, were five

university faculty members and one advanced doctoral student with expertise related to the

topic; 10 undergraduate students, six of whom were in a course on Soviet domestic policy; sevengraduate students and faculty in political science but with expertise in Latin America; four faculty

from the chemistry department; and one member of the foreign service. They were all asked to

think aloud about the problem using only their background knowledge and a paper and pencil

to help them think through the problem if necessary. Voss and colleagues (1983) found that

one way the more expert participants employed historical analysis was to frame the problem by

using knowledge of the past to identify sub-problems and constraints complicating agricultural

productivity, and to construct causal relations between concepts, facts, and principles relevant

to the issue. The authors concluded that the experts causal explanations seemed necessary for

developing an argument about the problem and its potential solutions. The less experienced

participants in their study used historical analysis far less, and were not effective in using their

background knowledge in the problem-solving context.Causal reasoning was an important component for reasoning about political issues in an

expertnovice study by Jones and Read (2005) as well. They asked 36 people of varying expertise

to think aloud while reasoning about one of three topicsthe IsraeliPalestinian conflict, the

crises in the Soviet Union shortly after its break up, or apartheid in South Africa. They found the

expert participants in their study were more likely to employ historical analysis in explaining the

problem presented them, especially through causal reasoning. The typical expert would start with

the earliest historical aspect of the situation and describe how one event led to another in order

to tie together past, present, and future events. Jones and Read argued that the use of historical

information is a major characteristic of the noviceexpert shift in reasoning about a political


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318 SHREINER

issue, and that experts have an increased tendency to become a storytellerthat is, to employ

causal historical narrativesin explaining the nature of the political conflict.

The use of narrative in reasoning about the present also played an important role in a laterstudy by Mosborg (2002) that focused on analyzing high school students thinking as they read

daily newspaper articles. Mosborg found that, for students, the news articles elicited narratives

contrasting how things were back then and how things are now. Although Mosborg characterized

students narratives as about change and continuity rather than causation, the students still used

narratives like experts in the previous studies had to explain and frame the issue about which

they were reading. Furthermore, Mosborg argued that the events students referenced in their

reasoning process seemed dependent on what she called background narratives regarding the

concept of religious freedom at issue in the article; students referenced events in line with either a

narrative emphasizing that U.S. history has been about expanding religious freedom or that U.S.

history has been about straying from Christian heritage. Mosborg thus concluded that reading the

news became an occasion for self-expression, with historical references recruited as footnotesand illustrations in voicing a personal point of view.

Together these studies suggest that historical narrative is an important tool for framing and

reasoning about contemporary issues. By themselves, however, the studies tell us little about the

nature of peoples historical narratives, whether expert or novice. For this, we must turn to another

body of research.

Research on the Use of Narrative

Narrative is one of several sociocultural tools that people use to structure and make sense ofhistorical information (Barton & Levstik, 2004; Bruner, 1991). Bruner (1991) defined a narrative

as an account of events occurring over time, comprised of an ensemble of ways of constructing

and representing the sequential, diachronic order of human events. He added, What underlies

all these forms for representing narrative is a mental model whose defining property is its unique

pattern of events over time (p. 6).

Indeed, research has revealed that even very young children use narratives to give the past

meaning, trying to make connections between whatever information they have in memory in

order to produce accounts that hang together (VanSledright & Brophy, 1992, p. 851). How-

ever, students accounts, even when arranged in a narrative form, can also be fragmentary and

simplified. They might conflate information from various sources, or contain fanciful elabora-

tions (McKeown & Beck, 1990; VanSledright & Brophy, 1992; Wills, 2011). Such features ofchildrens narratives may be prevalent because of the multitude of sources from which children

acquire information about the past. Wineburg, Mosborg, Porst, and Duncan (2007) have pointed

out that students narratives do not emerge via spontaneous generation from some neurological

incubator (p. 44). They are influenced not only by the school curriculum (Wills, 2011), but also

by a team of players, including family members, movies, and television, all of which form

contemporary historical consciousness (Wineburg et al., 2007, p. 44).

Wertsch (2004, 2008) argued that there are in fact two levels of narrative in peoples historical

consciousness:specific narrativesand schematic narrative templates. The former are the focus

of history instruction in the schools and deal with mid-level events that populate textbooks,

examinations, and other textual forms found in that context (Wertsch, 2004, p. 51).


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Constructing such specific narratives, argued Wertsch (2004), entails the act that grasps

together the detailed actions of . . . the storys incidents. It draws from this manifold of events

the unit of one temporal whole (p. 51). The schematic narrative templates, however, involve amuch more abstract level of representations and provide a narrative framework that is compatible

with many instantiations in specific narratives (p. 51). Such narrative templates, argued Wertsch

(2008), are concerned with general patterns rather than specific events and actors. . . . The

narrative templates can produce replicas that vary in their details but reflect a single general

storyline (p. 123).

Bruner (1991) also wrote of both general and detailed forms of narrative in peoples narrative

construction of reality. He characterized the more abstract or general form of narrative as

complementary to the detailed form, writing:

Narratives take as their ostensive reference particular happenings. But this is, as it were, their vehiclerather than their destination. For stories plainly fall into more general types: boy-woos-girls, bully-

gets-his-comeuppance, and so on. . . . In this sense the particulars of narratives are tokens of broader

types. . . . Particularity achieves its emblematic status by its embeddedness in a story that is in some

sense generic. And indeed it is by virtue of this embeddedness in genre, to look ahead, that narrative

particulars can be filled in when they are missing from an account. (pp. 67)

Although such scholarship suggests that both general narratives, or schematic narrative templates,

and detailed, or specific, narratives play a role in how people make meaning of the past, it is unclear

as to how people bring such narratives to bear on contemporary political issues. Furthermore,

although some of the studies I have discussed provide important insight into how people use

historical background knowledge to reason and solve problems, we have little research to provideinsight into the role historical knowledge, including historical narrative, plays in the reasoning

process when people are presented with a variety of information relevant to an issue. This is

unfortunate given that both students (see, e.g., National Governors Association Center for Best

Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010) and citizens are expected to deal with

a variety of information in everyday problem-solving and decision-making situations. This study,

then, explores the nature of historical knowledge people with varying levels of experience and

practice in the civic and political realm bring to bear on issues we face as citizens, and the ways

they employ such knowledge in reading and reasoning about a contemporary issue.

METHOD

The think-aloud method treats verbal reports of thinking as data, so that they are open to inspection

and interpretation by anyone (Newell & Simon, 1972; Someren, Barnard, & Sandberg, 1994). The

method has proved in other studies (e.g., Carretero et al., 1994; Wineburg, 1991) to be a useful

procedure for determining how experts and students think, and for observing the similarities and

differences between expert and novice thought processes. The participants for this think-aloud

were eight civically engaged political scientists and eight high school students. I asked them to

think aloud about the issue of bipartisanship in American politics while working with a variety

of documents. Specifically, I asked them to reason in response to the prompt: Should politicians


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320 SHREINER

work toward a spirit of bipartisanship? Or are the partisan divisions between the Democratic and

Republican parties actually a sign of a healthy democracy?

I chose bipartisanship as the topic because it has been a ubiquitous issue in the politicalrealm for at least the past decade. Partisan bickering of late has been a subject of concern for

American citizens, political scholars, and policymakers alike (e.g., Desilver, 2013, 2014; Pew

Research Center for the People & the Press, 2009), contributing to cries for solutions to the

perceived problem on the one hand, and defenses of partisanship as a healthy and normal aspect

of democracy on the other (e.g., Mansbridge & Martin, 2013; Rosenblum, 2010). At the time of

the study, the 2008 elections were approaching, making partisan differences and the potential for

bipartisan compromise particularly hot topics for discussion. Further, the issue of partisan politics

has a rich history that is often the subject of inquiry for political scientists (e.g., Aldrich, 2011;

Rosenblum, 2010), and has the potential to elicit thinking about government and the political

system, political parties, and the idea of democracy itself.

Participants

Political scientists served as the experts in the study because they are, by virtue of their Ph.D.

training and professional work, informed and knowledgeable about political and civic issues

such as bipartisanship. Six of the political scientists work concentrated on American govern-

ment and politics, while two of them on comparative government and politics. In addition to

being experts on political structures and processes, the political scientists participating in this

study were active and engaged citizens who have demonstrated, through their community in-

volvement, their interest in political and civic issues outside of academia. Each reported beinginvolved in two or more community organizations or activities, and in four or more recent

political activities, such as voting or engaging in a public debate (see Table 1 for experts

backgrounds).

The novices in this study were eight high school studentsfour 10th graders and four 12th

graders. Following the lead of other scholars who have designated high school students as novices

(e.g., Carretero et al., 1994; Wineburg, 1991), I assumed that the students would be unpracticed

in solving problems relevant to civic life. All the students in the study were recommended by

their teachers based on the following criteria: First, all were at or above reading level. If students

were not at a competent reading level for their grade, it might confound with how students were

using the text-based information. Another potential confounder was students knowledge base, so

a second criterion was that all students had completed civics or government and history courses,and had performed well. Third, all students had scored greater than the national average on pre-

test items drawn from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) examination in

civics and government, which teachers agreed to administer to students in their classes. Finally, I

asked that teachers select students they believed to be good citizens based on their participation

in the school and community. Four of the students were 10th graders who had just completed the

required civics course in their schools. Two students were from a suburban public high school, and

two were from a charter public school that drew from nearby suburban areas, as well as a major

urban and low socioeconomic area. The four remaining students were from this charter public

school as well, but were 12th graders who had completed required civics and history courses,

and were currently enrolled in an elective course on current events. A survey I administered also


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TABLE1

ProfilesofParticipatingPoliticalScientists

Political

Scientist

Research

Areas

Comm

unityMembership/Activity

RecentPoliticalActivity

David

-AmericanGovernment

andPolitics

-PoliticalPsychology

-PublicOpinion

-Impactofpedagogyon

students

civiccompetence

-Boardofd

irectorsforreligiousorganization

-Presidentelectforreligiousorganization

-Formerpresidentofuniversityreligious

organization

-Memberof

BoardofDirectorsforuniversity

religious

organization

-Voting

-Attendingapoliticalrally

-Contributingmoneyforapoliticalcause

-Writingletterore-mailinsupportofpolitical

cause

-Signingapetition

-Speakingpubliclyaboutapoliticalissue

-Engaginginapublicdebate

Alex

-AmericanGovernment

andPolitics

-PoliticalTheory

-PublicLaw

-BritishIdealism

-EducationalTheory

-AncientGreekPoliticalThought

-Elementary

schoolvolunteer

-Membershipinreligiousorganization

-Voting

-Volunteeringforacampaign

-Contributingmoneyforacampaign


-Engaginginpublicdebate

Kate

-AmericanGovernment

andPolitics

-GenderandPolitics/FeministTheory

-Researchmethodsandstatisticalanalysis

-Sociobiologyandfeminism

-Religiouso

rganization

-NAACP

-Cityplanningcommission

-Cityhistoricalarchitecturalpreservation

commiss

ion

-Variousvolunteeropportunities

-Voting


-Volunteeringforacampaign


-Writingaletterore-mailinsupportof

politicalcause

-Signingapetition

-Speakingpublicly

-Politicalleadershiprole


Rachel

-AmericanGovernment

andPolitics


-Methods

-PoliticalPsychology

-Useofgenderinpolitic

alcampaigns

-SierraClub

-BikingClub

-Urbancom

munityorganization

-Voting




(Continuedonnextpage)

321


12/42

TABLE1

ProfilesofParticipating

PoliticalScientists(Continued)

Political

Scientist

Research

Areas

Comm

unityMembership/Activity

RecentPoliticalActivity

John

-AmericanGovernment

andPolitics

-PoliticalTheory

-PublicPolicyandAdministration

-PoliticalTheology

-ReligionandPolitics

-CatholicSocialTeaching

-Religiouso

rganization

-Centerforcommunityleadership

-Voting




-Signingapetition

-Protesting

-Speakingpublicly


-Writingmagazinearticles

Doris

-AmericanGovernment

andPolitics


-Publicopiniononforeignpolicy

-Publicopinionandterrorism

-Gendergapsinpublicopinionandforeign

policy

-Nonprofito

rganizationdedicatedtothe

creationo

fparksandprotectionofland

-Nonprofitg

rouporganizinglocalmusic,a

rt

andheritagefestival

-Nonprofitinstituteforlife-longlearning

-Voting


-Writingletterore-mailinsupportofpolitical

cause

-Signingapetition

-Speakingpublicly

Michael

-ComparativeGovernmentandPolitics

-LatinAmericanMigration

-DemocratizationandM

ilitarisminLatin

America

-U.S.

LatinAmericanR

elations

-BoardoforganizationservingSpanish

speaking

population

-Facultyrep

resentativeformulticulturalneeds

committee

-FormerPea

ceCorpsvolunteer

-Voting

-Writingletterinsupportofpoliticalca

use

-Petitioning

-Signingapetition

-Speakingpubliclyaboutapoliticalissue

-Politicalleadershiprole

Sharon

-ComparativeGovernmentandPolitics


-PoliticalTheory

-Race,EthnicityandPolitics

-UrbanPolitics

-ComparativeIdentityPolitics

-Migration

-Howgroupsconstructbelonginginaneraof

globalization

-Humanrightsorganization

-Conservationorganization

-Foodcooperative

-Voting




-Signingapetition

Note.

Allnamesarepseudonyms.

322


13/42


revealed the school or community activities in which students were participating. The frequency

with which students read or watched the news on their own varied from almost never to every

day (see Table 2 for students backgrounds).

Documents

There were two sets of documents related to bipartisanship for the think-aloud session. The

first set consisted of nine documents that all subjects would read through in the same order to

aid in data segmentation and comparative analysis. I refer to these as common documents (see

Table 3 for descriptions of common documents). The set consisted of four types of documents:

background on the issue, survey data, opinion pieces, and newspaper articles. All represented

information both available in the public domain and subject to inquiry by political experts.Four of the common documents were adapted from an article on the Facts on File Issues and

Controversies website (Bipartisanship, 2008), which is a weekly updated database with print and

online references on current issues for high school and academic markets. It provided a wide

array of problems that could be used in this study and would likely be used by some practicing

teachers. Three other common documents were excerpts from viewpoint essays included in the

Gale Opposing Viewpoints database, which includes essays on current social issues written

by well-known columnists, scholars, and politicians. The last two common documents were

newspaper articles I found by searching the Newsbank Access World News database using the

keywords bipartisanship, bipartisan, partisanship, and partisan. Both articles provided

examples of bipartisan actions in Congress.

The second set of documents was one I told subjects they had the option to look through or not to

further address the problem. I refer to these as chosen documents (see Table 4). To aid participants

in making choices about which documents to read, I arranged the documents in folders titled,

background information, historical documents, and additional news articles. My purpose

for this portion of the think-aloud was to see how participants would choose and then use chosen

information to address the problem. The background information folder provided pieces that

might give subjects some historical grounding on the issue of bipartisanship. It consisted of three

other pieces from the Issues and Controversies on File article. The historical documents folder

held an excerpt from The Federalist, Paper Number Ten, by James Madison (1787), as well as

an excerpt from George Washingtons (1796) Farewell Address. These excerpts from primary

source documents were intended to provide subjects with additional historical perspective onbipartisanship by giving them access to the viewpoints of two of the nations founding fathers.

For my purposes, their reading of these texts could also provide insight into how subjects view

and use historical documents in reasoning through a problem. The third optional folder, titled

additional newspaper articles, could provide subjects with more information on current events

related to bipartisanship.

In addition to the document sets, I also provided a dictionary for high school students. A

pilot study helped me determine that a dictionary could help young readers pronounce and

define unfamiliar words that might otherwise negatively affect reading comprehension. However,

students were not required to use the dictionary and only one student did.


14/42

TABLE2

ProfilesofParticipatingHighSchoolStudents

Student

Grade/Age

SocialStudiesClasses

Taking/Completed

Frequencyof

Reading/Watchingthe

News

Participation

Alfred

10th/16yearsold

-Civics

-Economics

-U.S.H

istory

Everyday

-Commu

nityvolunteering

Jenny

10th/15yearsold

-Civics

-Economics

-U.S.H

istory

Afewtimesperweek

-Commu

nityvolunteering

-Charity

work

-Culturalorganizationbasedonethnicity

-Academ

icclub

-Religiousorganization

Deborah

10th/15yearsold

-Civics

-Economics

-U.S.H

istory

Everyday

-Student

council

-Student

exchangeprogram

-Human

rightsorganization

-Commu

nityvolunteering

-Charity

work

-Academ

icclub

-Art,mu

sicordramaorganization

-Sportsteam

Karen

10th/15yearsold

-Civics

-Economics

-U.S.H

istory

Afewtimesaweek

-YoungUNgroup

-Commu

nityvolunteering

-Culturalassociationbasedonethnicity

-Academ

icclub

-Art,mu

sic,ordramaorganization

Marianne

12thgrade/

17yearsold

-Civics

-Economics

-U.S.H

istory

-EuropeanHistory

-CurrentEvents

Afewtimesperweek

-Student

council

-Student

exchangeprogram

-Commu

nityvolunteering

-Charity

work

-GirlScouts

-Academ

icclub

-Art,mu


-Sportsteam


324


15/42

Tanya

12thgrade/18yearso

ld

-Civics

-U.S.H

istory

-CurrentEvents

Afewtimesperweek

-Youtho

rganizationaffiliatedwithpoliticalpartyor

union

-Schoolnewspaper

-Environ

mentalorganization

-Student

exchangeprogram

-Human

rightsorganization

-Commu

nityvolunteering

-Charity

work


-Art,mu


-Sportsteam


Rafael

12thgrade/17yearso

ld

-Civics

-Economics

-U.S.H

istory

-CurrentEvents

Afewtimesperweek

-Environ

mentalorganization

-Commu

nityvolunteering

-BoyScouts


-Sportsteam

Joshua

12thgrade/18yearso

ld

-Civics

-Economics

-U.S.H

istory

-CurrentEvents

Almostnever

-Student

council

-Commu

nityvolunteering

-Academ

icclub

-Sportsteam

Note.

Allnamesarepseudonyms.

325


16/42


17/42

TABLE4

DescriptionsofChosenDocumentsforThink-AloudSession

DocumentSource

Description

Bipartisanship.(2008).Issues&ControversiesonFile.RetrievedfromIssues

andControversieswebsite.

ExcerptcalledTheEvolution

ofPartisanPoliticsintheU.S.

thatpro

vided

anoverviewofthehistoryofpartisanpoliticsinthecountry.



ExcerptcalledPolicyStatementsbytheDemocraticandRepublicanParties,

thathadexcerptsfromthepartieswebsitesregardingtheirpositionson

issueslikeimmigrationand

healthcare.



ExcerptcalledRecentKeyEvents,providingaselectedchronology

of

eventssince1992relatedto

theissueofbipartisanship.

JamesMadison,T

heFederalist,PaperNo.10

ThisexcerptfromTheFederal

istPaperswarnedofthedangeroffactionsin

government,characterizingthemashavingthepotentialtocause

instability,i

njustice,a

ndco

nfusion.

GeorgeWashingtonsFarewellAddress

Inhisfarewelladdress,W

ashingtonalsoarguedthatfactionispartofmans

natureandpassions,b

utthatthemischiefsofthespiritofpartyarein

needofconstantvigilanceandrestraint.

Araton,H.(

2008,F

ebruary14).Politiciansturnsteroidhearingintoapartisan

squabble.T

heNewYorkTimes,p.D

1(L).

Newspaperarticlethatcovered

thesteroidhearingforbaseballplayerRoger

Clemens.Ipurposelychose

anarticlecoveringastorythatmightbeof

morepopularinterest,

but

thatwas,n

onetheless,a

boutanissue

supposedlyinfluencedbypa

rtisandisagreementamonglegislators.

Lengell,S.(

2008,M

arch30).Election

shapingonHill-Democratspushbills

thatwontpasstooutlinedifferenceswithRepublicans.T

heWashington

Times,p.A

01.

NewspaperarticlethatDemocratswerepurposelypushinglegislation

that

wouldnotmeettheapprovalofPresidentGeorgeW.B

ushorother

Republicanstohighlightthe

irdifferenceswiththeopposingpartyinthe

presidentialelectionyear.It

providedacontrasttothenewspaperar

ticlesin

thecommondocumentsetb

ecauseitfocusedonpartisandifference

s,rather

thanprovidinganexampleo

fbipartisan-supportedlegislation.

327


18/42

328 SHREINER

Think-Aloud Procedure

I gave the subjects simple, straightforward instructions, and told them not to explain or interprettheir responses. I did not tell them what information should be attended to, or what differences in

performance could occur (Someren et al., 1994). In accordance with the suggestions of Ericsson

and Simon (1993) I gave three practice problems to each subject at the beginning of the session.

Since thinking aloud is unnatural, previous studies (e.g., Wineburg, 1991) have recommended

and employed opportunities for subjects to practice, or warm up.

The think-aloud session consisted of five segments: (a) a report of prior knowledge, (b) a

concurrent think-aloud with the common documents, (c) a retrospective think-aloud with the

common documents, (d) a concurrent think-aloud with the participants chosen documents, and

(e) a retrospective think-aloud with the participants chosen documents. Each session lasted

anywhere between one and two hours. With wide variations within each group, time differences

seemed dependent on the participant and their particular style and pace, not upon their expertise.During the think-aloud procedure, I did as little to interfere as possible. Only when the subject

stopped talking for around five seconds or longer did I prompt him or her to continue.

In the first segment, I asked subjects to tell me what they already knew about the issue

of bipartisanship. Next, I gave subjects the common documents. Both political scientists and

students verbalized their thoughts while reading the documents on bipartisanship and addressing

the problem: Should politicians work toward a spirit of bipartisanship? Or are the partisan

divisions between the Democratic and Republican parties actually a sign of a healthy democracy?

In addition to the concurrent verbal report, I used retrospective reporting after the subjects read

through the documents, asking them to go back and talk more about what they were thinking

while reading and addressing the problem. Such reporting can be useful in learning why subjectsthought they were thinking something at a particular time, or to better understand parts of the

concurrent report that seemed incomplete or odd (Ericsson & Simon, 1993). In the third part of

the think-aloud session, I gave subjects the second set of documents and told them they could

choose to look at documents in the set or not. I then instructed them to think aloud throughout

the process of choosing and reading the documents. At the end, I again asked them to go back

and talk about what they were thinking.

ANALYSIS

I coded and analyzed all verbal data from the common documents session, but for verbal data

from the chosen documents segment, I only analyzed the documents used by at least 50% of the

subjects. All of these documents happened to be those that might provide historical perspective.

For purposes of comparison, I broke up transcribed data by paragraphs as they were represented in

the common and chosen documents, and highlighted all places where participants said something

in reaction to the documents. As I will describe below, I saw these statements as different

kinds of moves participants were making, and it was these moves that served as the units of

analysis for the study. After coding, which I describe below, I established interrater reliability with

an experienced qualitative researcher using transcripts from three political scientists and three

high school students. Initially, interrater reliability was 73% but we were able to resolve most


19/42


FIGURE 1 Average number of times students and political scientists referenced different kinds of knowledge during the

common documents portion of the think-aloud session.

disagreements through discussion, resulting in interrater reliability of 97% (Miles & Huberman,

1994).

My first round of analysis was aimed at highlighting the various references participants made

to other places in the documents they were reading or to background knowledge they possessed

outside of the document set. I combined a modified grounded theory approach (Auerbach &Silverstein, 2003; Strauss & Corbin, 1990) and content analysis (Neuendorf, 2002). The grounded

theory approach was modified in that it employed a mixture of predetermined and grounded coding

(Auerbach & Silverstein, 2003; Miles & Huberman, 1994). Based on my observations during

the think-aloud sessions, I developed descriptive, predetermined codes to note the kind of moves

subjects were making (Auerbach & Silverstein, 2003; Miles & Huberman, 1994) while reading

through the documents and reasoning about the problem. These moves included references to

another document, to a point within the same document, to the problem, to background knowledge

or experience, or reactions to information in the document (see Table 5 for examples of short-hand

codes for moves and their operational definitions). I then used a grounded approach to develop

codes for the types of information or knowledge participants were using, such as knowledge of

the source or knowledge of government (see Table 5 for examples of shorthand codes for types ofknowledge; Figures 1 and 2 also show the types of knowledge participants employed during the

different segments of the think-aloud). Out of this round of coding, I was able to identify segments

of the think-aloud where participants were referring to knowledge of history or information about

history, which then provided the subject of my next round of analysis.

In this next round, I organized segments coded as references to historical knowledge or infor-

mation and analyzed the content to determine the nature of the historical knowledge participants

were using. I found that, in addition to general statements about the history of political parties,

partisan politics, or American politics in general, there was also evidence of concepts that char-

acterize historical understanding, such as periodization, significance, cause, change over time,

and historical empathy. Realizing these were redolent of the second-order concepts identified


20/42

TABLE5

SampleofCodesUsedtoDescribeParticipantsMovesDuringtheThink-Alo

udSessions

Code

OperationalD

efinition

Example(s)

S-D

Subjectsthoughtsaremovinginspaceto

anotherdocumentinthedocumentset.

Rachel:Okay,letssee,sowevegotabunchofdifferentdocumentshereaboutum,a

boutit,well

ImjustflippingthroughandImlookingatwhowrotethesearticlesandwheretheycamefrom.

Karen:So,andthenbackinthisone,thegraphthatsaysthatAmericawouldchooseamode

rate

Democrat...

S-P

Subjectsthoughtsaremovingbackinspaceto

theproblemasoriginallystated.

David:Imgoingbackandjustlookingattheoriginalquestion,i

fIcouldfindit.S

houldpoliticians

worktowa

rdaspiritofbipartisanshiporarethepartisandivisionsactuallyasignofahealthy

democracy

?

Marianne:Sobacktothebeginning,theissue,shouldpoliticiansworktowardthespiritof

bipartisanshiporarethepartisanship,o

rarethepartisandivisionsbetweenDemocratican

d

Republicanpartiesactuallyasignofahealthydem

ocracy?

T-K:H

Subjectsthoughtsaremovingintimeto

knowledgeofhistory.

David:...a

sIlookbacktothe50sRepublicanpartyandthe50sDemocraticpartyforthatm

atter,it

doesntstrikemeinretrospectasahorrificallypartisantime.CertainlyIwouldntputEisenhower

inasarem

arkablepartisanbut,ontheotherhand,d

ependsonhowearlyinthe50s...I

meanif

its50or51youretalkingaboutRepublicansupagainstTruman,t

heDo-Nothings80th

Congress,

whichwasverypartisan.B

utifyouretalkingabout53,

54,i

tsalesspartisan

period.

Tanya:Ithinktherehavebeenalotofcorruptthings

inAmericanhistorythatalotofpeopledont

talkabout.

T-K:SO


knowledgeofthedocu

mentsource.

Sharon:SothispersonisattheHudsonInstitute,wh

ichIhappentoknowismoreofaconservative

place.

Rachel:SomeofthesenamesIrecognize,likeDavid

Brooks.IseehimontheJimLehrerN

ews

Hour.

T-C:BP


conceptionofbipartisa

nship(i.e.,

ideaabout

whatbipartisanshipisandisnot,ordoesor

doesnotentail).

Rachel:Idon

tthinkworkingtowardbipartisanshipasanendinandofitselfisreallygoing

tosolve

anything.Ithinkbipartisanshipwillcomenaturallyaslawmakersneedtogetsomethinge

nacted.

Theywillhavetolooktobipartisanshipsupport,p

articularlyintheclimatethatitistoday

.

Rafael:Idothink[bipartisanship]isrealisticanditc

anchangethewayRepublicansandDe

mocrats

feelabout

eachother...

Note.

Underlinedletterscorrespondtothelettersusedforthecodelistedintheleft-handcolumn.

330


21/42


FIGURE 2 Average number of references students and political scientists made to different kinds of knowledge during

the chosen documents portion of the think-aloud session.

in literature on historical thinking (e.g., Andrews & Burke, 2007; Gaddis, 2002; Lee, 2005), I

categorized the passages as such (see Table 6 for examples of historical knowledge).

Another round of analysis for this study was aimed at determining how participants were

using their knowledge. Here I used a grounded theory approach (Auerbach & Silverstein, 2003;

Strauss & Corbin, 1990) and content analysis (Neuendorf, 2002). For the text-based documents,

more than 20 different grounded codes emerged, so I categorized them to help make further senseof what subjects were doing. I classified one set of codes as information-extraction reading

strategies, which subjects used to aid in understanding of the text and included summarizing,

paraphrasing, backtracking for clarification, and determining the authors purpose. I classified

another set of codes as evaluative reading strategies, which subjects used in determining the

value or merit of a piece of information. These strategies were similar to those described by Britt

and Aglinskas (2002) and consisted of sourcing, contextualizing, and questioning the author. I

also included choosing not to read something in this category because it seemed to be a product of

text evaluation as well (see Figure 3). I classified the third set of codes as reasoning strategies.

These included strategies for voicing an opinion, such as agreeing with the text, providing a

reason for agreement, disagreeing with the text, providing a reason for disagreement, expressing

a viewpoint (independent of what text was asserting), and providing support for the viewpoint.After coding all the transcripts using my grounded coding scheme, I counted the different

kinds of moves participants were making throughout the think-aloud with both common and

chosen documents. I then conducted two-tailed, unpaired Students t tests to see if there were

statistically significant differences between means. I tabulated data to compare the average number

of times subjects used information-extraction reading strategies, evaluative reading strategies, and

reasoning strategies while reading and thinking about the text-based documents throughout the

common documents session. In addition to performing two-tailed, unpaired Students t tests

to compare political scientists and students actions for each document, I performed one-way

ANOVA tests with a Bonferroni posttests to see if there were statistically significant differences

among the political scientists and students.


22/42

TABLE6

ExamplesofConnectionsBetweenParticipantsHistoricalKnowledgeandItsUses

Typeof

Knowledge

Participant:Comment

UseofKnowledge

Document/SegmentofDocumen

t

Knowledgeof

Source

PoliticalscientistAlex:Washingtonsworried

aboutnarrow,privateinterestinsocietythat

servesitsownn

arrowinterestandnotthe

broadergood.

Commen

tontheauthorsmotivationfor

writingthedocument

WashingtonsFarewellAddress

HighSchoolStudentAlfred:George

Washingtonism

oreimportantbecausehe

wasourfirstpre

sident.

Commen

tontheauthorsposition

WashingtonsFarewellAddress

Narrative

Template

HighschoolstudentRafael:AsfarasIm

concernedAmericahasbeendividedasa

politicalparty,a

spoliticiansareconcerned,

anditwillprobablyalwaysbe

Evaluate

historicallygroundedclaimand

disagree

AfterfinishingtheSchambrapiece.

HighschoolstudentTanya:Americaasa

wholehasneverbeenunited.

Evaluate

historicallygroundedclaimandagree

Schambra(2006):Infact,p

oliticsfor

our

parentsgreatestgenerationwasju

stas

boisterous,n

asty,a

ndoverthetopasitis

todayindeed,a

sitalwayshasbeen,for

Americans.

Periodization

PoliticalscientistDavid:AsIlookbacktothe

50s...

itdoesntstrikemeinretrospectas

ahorrificallypa

rtisantime.

Evaluate


disagree

Schambra(2006):Letssteponthem

!

exhortstheearly1950sRepublicanelection

posterhanginginmybasement.

PoliticalscientistKate:Gayrightsand

feminismdidntreallyexistaspolitical

issuesuntilafterthe1960ssothats

oversimplification.

Evaluate


disagree

EvolutionofPartisanPolitics:[In]the

turbulent1960s,L

iberalsflockedtothe

DemocraticParty,whichadvocated

well-fundedfederalsocialprograms

and

championedotherso-calledprogressive

causes,s

uchasgayrightsandfemin

ism.

ChangeoverTime

PoliticalscientistDavid:Therewereno

politicalparties

atthetimeandIthink

Madisonwould

havebeencomfortablewith

theargumentthatpoliticalpartiesasthey

developedrepre

sentfactions.

Supportargument

FederalistNo.10:Theinstability,inju

stice,

andconfusionintroducedintothepu

blic

councilshave,i

ntruth,beenthemortal

diseasesunderwhichpopulargovernments

haveeverywhereperished...

332


23/42

PoliticalscientistJohn:Communismand

NewDealismto

okplaceinacontextin

whichreallypeopledidthinkthatwewere

inakindofstru

gglebetweenthechildrenof

lightandthechildrenofdarknessandthere

weregoodreasons,Ithink,tobecautious

andcareful.CertainlyNewDealism,

FranklinDelanoRooseveltspolitical

philosophy,i

ssomethingthat,a

tthetime

was,I

think,immenselyimportantforthe

UnitedStates.Itcertainlywasnt

Communism.

Evaluate

historicallygroundedargumentand

agree

Schambra(2006):Letssteponthem

!

exhortstheearly1950sRepublicanelection

posterhanginginmybasement.Itfe

atures

thepartyspachydermwithhisfootplanted

squarelyontwosquirmingfigures,o

nea

mustachioedStalinlook-a

likelabele

d

Communism,

theotheraspectacled,

briefcase-totingbureaucratlabeledNew

Dealism.

Causation

PoliticalscientistDoris:Atthesametime,in

the1940swhile

thatwasgoingon,t

here

wastremendouspartisanshipandfighting

betweentheRepublicansandDemocrats

overtheriseoflaborandallthelawshad

beenpassedtosupportlaborunions.

Evaluate


disagree.

EvolutionofPartisanPolitics:Thatsp

iritof

cooperationhelpedU.S.p

oliticiansdesigna

coherentapproachtothechallenges

ofthe

ColdWararivalrybetweentheU.S.a

nd

SovietUnionthatlastednearlyhalfa

centurywithoutsufferingmanysignificant

partisanclashes.

PoliticalScientistAlex:Itsbeenthe

evolutionofthe

Democratsand

Republicans,th

edeathofalltheliberal

RepublicansandconservativeDemocrats,

thathasbroken

thepartiesup.

Frameth

eproblem

TheIssue:Mostpeopleagreethatthe

U.S.

governmentissharplydividedalong

party

lines.RepublicansandDemocratsoften

disagreeonhowtoresolvepressing

issues

facingtheU.S.t

oday.

333


24/42

334 SHREINER

FIGURE 3 The average number of times students and political scientists employed specific types of evaluative reading

strategies, including the heuristics of sourcing and contextualizing, while reading text-based documents during the

think-aloud session.

To see specifically how historical knowledge was being put to use by the subjects, I used con-

stant comparative analysis with verbal data for both political scientists and students, connecting

the historical knowledge codes with the utility of movement codes, and analyzing the text to

which they were responding. This analysis allowed me to draw conclusions about how subjects

were using historical knowledge as they employed the aforementioned evaluative or reasoning

strategies. I then used content analysis to look across participants verbal data, noting patterns,

similarities and differences among political scientists, among students, and between political

scientists and students (see Table 6 for examples of how types of knowledge were used).

RESULTS

In the sections that follow, I discuss the participants perceptions of historys usefulness, and how

participants approached the documents in determining how useful they would be for reasoning

about the issue of bipartisanship. Next I discuss the nature of participants historical knowledgein use, noting both similarities and differences between experts and novices. I also explain how

participants were using their knowledge and those features of their knowledge that seemed most

usable.

Perceptions of Historys Usefulness

Both experts and novices in this study indicated that they viewed history as potentially useful

in helping them think about the issue of bipartisanship. When given the option of choosing


25/42


from a selection of historical and contemporary documents, all the participants chose to look

at documents of a historical nature first. Five out of the eight political scientists, for example,

began with either Washington or Madison and one reported that the only reason he did not choosethese documents was because he was already so familiar with them. The remaining three political

scientists chose the Evolution of Partisan Politics piece. The high school students made similar

choices, looking at documents of a historical nature before any other kind. Five out of eight of

them chose to look at Washington or Madison first, and the other three began with the Evolution

of Partisan Politics piece.

Despite the fact that both the political scientists and the high schools students viewed history

as useful in the reasoning process, the degree to which they actually used historical knowledge

and information was substantially different. All eight of the political scientists used historical

knowledge while reasoning through the documents whereas only three of eight high school

students referenced historical knowledge. This, of course, could be attributed to differences in

their knowledge bases. The political scientists serving as the experts in this study, not surprisingly,were more knowledgeable about bipartisanship, government, politics, and current events than the

high school students (see Figures 1 and 2). All the political scientists could provide a detailed

definition of bipartisanship and link it to ideas about partisan politics, political parties, and the

legislative process. On the other hand, three students initially reported that they knew nothing

about bipartisanship, or at least did not know the term bipartisanship, although it later became

clear that these students understood something about disagreements and efforts at consensus in

politics. The other five high school students could provide a basic definition of bipartisanship

as when political parties with differences or conflicts work to reach some compromise or

agreement.

The differences between the knowledge bases of political scientists and high school studentswere neither surprising nor unexpected. Indeed, their designations as experts and novices in the

study indicate my presumptions about differences in their experience and knowledge. The focus

of this investigation, though, was not to understand how much more knowledgeable or skillful

one group was than another, but rather to understand how participants of differing experience

reasoned with what knowledge and skills they possess, including how they approach information

with their knowledge and skills, as well as what aspects of their knowledge they found usable. In

what follows, I will discuss these findings.

Using Sourcing and Contextualizing Heuristics

When approaching documents provided to read through for the think-aloud session, the most com-

mon types of evaluative strategiesthat is, strategies to determine the value of a documentthe

political scientists in this study employed were sourcing and contextualizing (see Figure 3).

These are heuristics that researchers (e.g., Monte-Sano, 2010; Reisman, 2012; Wineburg, 1991)

commonly associate with historical thinking and problem solving. Some students also employed

sourcing heuristics while reading through the documents and reasoning about bipartisanship, but

the degree to which they sourced and the kind of sourcing they used differed markedly from the

political scientists.


26/42

336 SHREINER

Sourcing

The political scientists sourced documents significantly more than the high school students(p-value= .0047; see Figure 3). Moreover, all of the political scientists used a sourcing heuristic,

while only three high school students did.

Not only did the degree to which political scientists and high schools students sourced the

documents differ markedly, but also the kind of sourcing that they employed. When the three

high school students who sourced documents did so, they attended to some combination of

the document date and type, and to what Britt and Aglinskas (2002) refer to as the authors

positionthat is, the occupation, position, or credentials of the author. Specifically, four out

of the eight students noted that Washington was the first president, deeming the document as

something important to read, and one of them explicitly noted that Washingtons Farewell

Address was from 1787, a long time ago.

Political scientists attended to these features as well, but they also attended to the document dateand type, to the authors position, and to what Britt and Aglinskas (2002) referred to as the authors

motivation (i.e., the possible reasons the author wrote the document) and participation (i.e.,

whether or not the author participated in relevant activities). Rachel, for example, made a series of

statements about Madison and Washington when reading the historical documents they authored.

While reading Madison, she said, If Madison didnt want factions he wouldnt have made it

difficult to get things done. I mean, he created three branches of government and that makes

things difficult to get done. Of Washington, she said, He doesnt mean parties the way we know

them today. . . . Washington was in a different time and didnt read Aldrich, [who wrote a book

on the origin and transformation of political parties]. Political scientist Doris also made a point

of Washingtons motivations, stating:

Washington of course is leaving government, just as the political parties are beginning to form and

certainly had nothing like we have today. And you wonder if what he wrote was tinged by the issues

of the time including the developing hatred between Adams and Jefferson who were surely to be

his successors. I mean I think the Congress at that time was, and the administration was, filled with

people whod been working for freedom for 20 years together and they were beginning to see some

really evil things. I mean after all, remember the duel with Aaron Burr; they saw some really hatred

evolving. But Im not sure that Washingtons comments would be the same in the light of the party

system that developed later.

Moreover, several of the political scientists made evaluative statements about the author or

document, stating their opinion of them and their value as a source. For example, in regards to

reading the Kinsley viewpoint piece, Alex stated the following in his retrospective interview:

I guess I was struck by the source . . . that we were moving into more political territory here with

Michael Kinsley, rather than with William Schambra. [T]hat struck me, I guess because I was looking

at who it was and that this fellow [Schambra] was from the Bradley Center, which I didnt read out

loud I guess. And I know Michael Kinsley from his other writings.

Rachel flipped through the common documents and said, [S]ome of these names I recognize,

like David Brooks. I see him on the Jim Lehrer News Hour. She then added, with a laugh, So I

dont know if that makes me believe him or not. Sharon read that William Schambra was at the


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Hudson Institute, and added, which I happen to know is a more conservative place, so I have

that in my mind even before I begin to read it. While looking at the graphic data, Alex saw that

that the data in the bar graph was gathered and presented by the Pew Research Center and stated,matter-of-factly, Theyre reputable. Likewise, David read Pew Research Center and associated

them with a reliable, solid methodology.

Of course, the political scientists background knowledge, whether of history or current events,

had an important influence on their tendency to source the documents they were reading. They

commonly recognized the names of the authors, whereas students only recognized Washington

and sometimes Madison. High school student Tanya, who regularly read the source information

at the top of the documents, always followed with some variation of I never heard of him.

However, while political scientists knowledge bases might have led them to demonstrate

that they were sourcing more often, political scientists also sourced when they had little or no

knowledge of a source. For example, Sharon indicated that she was wholly or partly unfamiliar

with several of the sources, but she still tried to gather some idea of what perspective the authorwas coming from by looking at was provided her in the documents. Of Michael Kinsley, she

read, . . . Whos a commentator and also described as a liberal pundit. She then added, So

this is interesting if this person is also defending partisanship but from a different political

perspective. Consistently, when political scientists were not certain about the source, they tried

to take what little knowledge they had and piece together some notion of the authors perspective

or bias. For example, Michael read that William Schambra is the Director of the Bradley Center

for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal at the Hudson Institute and said, . . . Which I think is a

conservative think tank. David read the name David Brooks and commented, David Brooks is

the Times columnist? I dont read the Times. He worked for the Wall Street Journal. I believe

Brooks is sort of the token conservative on the Old Gray Lady.It seems then, it was not entirely the political scientists content knowledge that led them to

source; they sourced regardless of knowledge to see if they could determine the reliability of the

source. Most students, on the other hand, were clearly not in the habit of sourcing information.

Indeed, most of them did not read the provided source information at any point in the process. In

some cases, by skipping the source entirely, they missed information that could have given them

some idea of the authors perspective. The beginning of the Kinsley piece, for example, described

Kinsley as a liberal pundit, which would have clued students into his political leanings. Yet,

the majority of students neglected to acknowledge source information before, while, and after

reading the body of each document.

Contextualization

If students relative lack of background knowledge contributed to their tendency to ignore

sources, it probably also accounted for the fact that they never provided or indicated that they

were trying to provide contextual information for the documents. Political scientists, on the

other hand, regularly contextualized documents, both historical and contemporary. For example,

looking at the pie graph, David commented, This is January of 07. Im trying to think what

was particularly salient then was right after Bush got his clock cleaned in the midterm elections

so, it certainly was part of a down cycle for him. Kate did something similar with the pie graph,

stating, Well, were a year out from the primaries and starting two years from the election.


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338 SHREINER

Both used their knowledge of current events to try to make meaning out of the information they

encountered. Again, however, political scientists also tried to contextualize even when they lacked

knowledge. Michael, for example, simply noticed that the survey data for the pie chart was from2007, over a year before he was looking at it, and said, 2007, that was quite a while ago so I

wonder what it would look like today. Kate dated the New York Timesarticle, saying, And that

was when, in April? April. And I dont know what has happened to that bill since then.

Although background knowledge likely influenced the degree to which participants used

sourcing and contextualizing heuristics while reading the documents, both political scientists

and students nonetheless used historical knowledge in the reasoning process. So what char-

acterized the historical knowledge participants used? As I will argue in the next section, the

historical knowledge participants used was structured as historical narrative, although the detail

and specificity of narratives differed markedly between political scientists and students.

Using Historical Narrative to Reason About Contemporary Issues

Both the political scientists and high school students in the study made references to what Wertsch

(2004, 2008) would call schematic narrative templates, or general statements characterizing the

history of politics in the United States. For example, high school student Tanya restated the same

basic storyline for American politics in several different ways, saying America as a whole has

never been united, Weve been trying to come together through all the presidents but were still

not close, and Weve been trying to come together for years. For her, the historical story relevant

to the issue of bipartisanship was simply that America was and always had been politically divided,

despite Americans best efforts to become more united. High school student Rafael referenceda similar story, stating, America has always been divided. High school student Deborah also

used historical narrative to some degree in the think-aloud, but hers was less a characterization

of the whole of American political history, and more about the difference between then and now.

She stated, simply, that They came together more back then [when Washington was president],

indicating that there was more bipartisanship then than nowa slightly less bleak outlook on

politics in the American history, but with some sense of decline over time.

Interestingly, these students had similar views as the political scientists, who also made such

general statements about the U.S. political past in the reasoning process. Like high school students

Tanya and Rafael, political scientists Michael, Alex, Rachel, John, and Doris stated that American

politics had always been divisive. And political scientists David and Kate had views similar to

those of high school student Deborah, who stated that partisanship had worsened over time.Yet, never at any point did the students provide detail to their stories; they did not mention

issues that divided political parties, how the views of political parties changed over time, or

examples of failed efforts to come together. Moreover, they did not provide any explanations as

to why divisiveness existed in the first place.

The political scientists, on the other hand, provided examples and explanations as to how

politics had always been divisive, or how it had worsened over time. Moreover, the details the

political scientists gave seemed to temper their views to some degree, creating less of a wholly

negative picture of the state of American politics than was conveyed by the students. For example,

the political scientists who stated that partisanship had always existed explained that the system

was just set up the way it was and it was not a majorly concerning problem. Those who arguedthat partisanship had gotten worse provided a clear cause for it worsening, which in some ways


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implied the possibility of solution. Kate, in fact, offered a detailed solution, describing how the

political parties had to sit down and agree on what the problem was.

Political scientist John serves as an interesting case to illustrate the use of detailed narrative inthe reasoning process. Because of the frequency of his historical references, I could piece together

a nearly coherent narrative of the evolution of partisanship in American politics. Consider, for

example, the story that is constructed by reorganizing Johns separate comments (with time

separation indicated by ellipses) in the following way:

[T]he system as its built was designed to make it very, very difficult for government to get anything

done. We set it up that way because we were afraid of government and we were fearful of majorities

doing too much damage in too short of a period of time. . . . There are lots of people who didnt

like each other on both sides of the aisle for 220 odd years in this country and that hasnt changed a

whole lot. . . . The rancor that we see today isnt nearly as bad as some of the rancor we saw, even

at the beginning of the Republic. And so, part of my sort of first impression is that [the argument thatpartisanship has become worse] is just a myth. Everybody thinks that its worse now than it used to

be, but if they went back and read speeches and looked at the way that people talked in newspapers

about one another and the kinds of things that were being said, I think theyd be shocked. . . . The

1920s, 1930s in this country were probably some of the most fascinating times to be alive in terms

of political ideas. You had people like Father Coughlin on the right, who had millions and millions

of listeners coming out of Michigan who was preaching a sort of fascism that we would associate

with Benito Mussolini. We certainly had supporters on the left of what was going on in the Soviet

Unioncertainly at least some Leninists and some Trotskyites, who were very, very excited about

the possibility of a revolution taking place in this country, and then we had all kinds of people in the

middle from Populists to Democrats and Republicans and Socialists like Eugene Debs. This was as

far from unity as we could possibly get. Its always funny to remember that Eugene Debs runs for

president from a jail cell as a Socialist candidate in 1920 or so and gets a million votes, right? And

so one of the things that I think we need to understand is that this was not a golden age of political

discourse but was actually one of the most rancorous and contentious periods in American history,

where almost anything was possible for better or for worse. . . . At the end of the day the greatest

generations politics were indeed much, much more interesting and radical in the sense of what was

possible as opposed to today where I think that while we have maybe a lot louder, a lot more oh, once

again to use the word boisterous or rancorous voices, at the end of the day there arent really any

radical voices at the table in the way that there were in the 30s and the 40s. Theres nobody out there

whos running as a Socialist, whos going to get a million votes. Theres no Fascist out there, even in

the electronic age, whos going to have 24, 25 million radio listeners to his broadcast every week and

so for me, of course, this is just one of those funny kinds of ideas that somehow its gotten worse.

By looking at the segments separately, one might not recognize the organization of bits of

information into such a nearly coherent whole, yet clearly he held such a narrative in his working

memory, and used it fluently in reasoning about the question of whether or not partisanship had

become worse.

How Experts Used Historical Narrative

Political scientist John used the segments of his seemingly complete narrative for different

purposes at different points throughout the think-aloud. Indeed, the political scientists in thisstudy used historical details for several common purposes while reasoning about the issue of


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340 SHREINER

bipartisanship, emphasizing different segments of the narratives at appropriate points in the

reasoning process. They used historical narrative to (a) frame the problem they were addressing,

(b) provide support for their own arguments, and (c) make sense of and evaluate historicalreferences made by authors.

Using history to fr