Is history learning in danger in secondary schools? : teaching strategies to enhance the popularity of history amongst secondary school students

Abstract

The focus of this exploratory qualitative-dominated mixed-methods research is to identify specific history teaching strategies and assess their effectiveness in improving the students' perception of the subject. Such a study is important in order to enhance the popularity of history in secondary schools and to attempt a reversal of the current trend. A positivist approach is adopted in the first part of the study to collect data regarding the international and local situation. In the second study, the effectiveness of specific teaching strategies are analysed through a non-positivist stance. Quantitative research methods are used in the first part of the study through descriptive data, simple statistics and graphs. In the second study, a qualitative survey-research was used. It was based on a questionnaire and semi-structured focus group interviews. The findings from the first study show that locally, history is one of the least popular subjects since the majority of secondary students drop history. The evidence given by the second study shows that the teaching strategies identified through the literature review and implemented during the intervention, were successful in improving the perception of history by the majority of the research sample. The main conclusion is that the pedagogy used can help teachers motivate more students for history learning. Apart from recommending such strategies, their benefits and implementation are also explained. Similar research in other schools is recommended for incremental "generalizability" and comparison of findings.