A research study of the role of knowledge in Year 8 to Year 13 students' interpretations of historical sources

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.

What role does knowledge play in the interpretation of documentary materials? How do history students use what they know? What kind of knowledge really ‘makes the difference' and which ways of using knowledge make the most difference to the quality of students' thinking? Answering questions like these involves the careful  analysis of the things that students do when they work with  documents and thinking about students' conceptual  understandings, linked to their knowledge of the discipline of history, as well as about the factual knowledge that students draw upon when interpreting documents. Elisabeth Pickles has explored these issues systematically and in depth through empirical research. This article reports key findings from Pickles' research and highlights implications for practice.