title: History as narrative: the nature and quality of historical understanding for students with LD.
abstract: In this study, we examine the nature and quality of students' comprehension of history. Specifically, we explore whether cognitive-psychological theories developed to capture the comprehension of narrative text can be used to capture the comprehension of history. Participants were 36 students with learning disabilities who had taken part in an earlier study designed to investigate the effects of an interactive instructional intervention in history. The results of the original study supported the effectiveness of the intervention in terms of amount recalled. The results of the present study reveal that historical understanding can be characterized as the construction of meaning through the creation of a causal network of events. The study of history within a causal network framework has implications for understanding the nature and quality of students' learning of history, and for potentially identifying sources of failure in learning.
authors: Learning disabilities program, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 55455, USA.
authors: Christine A
authors: CA
authors: Espin
authors: Jazmin
authors: J
authors: Cevasco
authors: Paul
authors: P
authors: van den Broek
authors: Scott
authors: S
authors: Baker
authors: Russell
authors: R
authors: Gersten
mesh_terms: D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition; D006664:History; D006801:Humans; D007859:Learning Disabilities; D033262:Narration; D013334:Students; D013663:Teaching / Q000379:methods*