Promoting historical reasoning in inquiry-based history education: design of a professional development programme

Many primary school teachers consider history to be a challenging subject to teach. In this educational design study, we developed a professional development programme for primary school teachers, aimed at enhancing their pedagogical content knowledge and skills for designing inquiry-based history lessons that foster pupils’ historical reasoning. In the first cycle we formulated aims and design principles and developed a prototype programme based on teacher interviews and literature on effective teacher professional development, historical reasoning and inquiry-based learning. The programme was subsequently piloted with four teachers in grades 3–6 (pupils aged 8–12 years old) in the Netherlands. We developed a coding scheme to analyse professional growth during the programme. In the second cycle we revised principles and the professional development programme based on key findings of the pilot. These findings indicate that collaborative inquiry activities and modelling historical reasoning triggered personal change. We designed lessons based on classroom observations and pupils’ feedback to support the development of practice. Moreover, searching for and discussing sources and their use helped participating teachers to put these lessons into practice. This article contributes to theory by offering design principles for professional development programmes on historical reasoning in inquiry-based history lessons and by providing a coding scheme for analysing professional development. Findings underline the importance of sustained, collaborative professional development meetings focusing on hands-on experience of disciplinary ways of working and tailoring professional development to classroom realities.