Identifying Bottlenecks to Learning in History Courses

We began the interviews by asking each participant to identify a “bottleneck” to learning in their undergraduate history courses, i.e. a place where significant numbers of students seemed unable to master basic skills needed in the course. This initial emphasis on “bottlenecks” to learning, inspired by the “decoding the disciplines” approach, had the advantage of focusing our attention on those areas in which revisions of teaching strategies seemed most necessary.

We are in the process of analyzing and categorizing the interviewees responses, but it is already apparent that most of the bottlenecks fall into these three categories. Examples of bottlenecks from each group may be found by clicking on its title below.

I. Conceptual bottlenecks:
These involve students’ misunderstanding of the kinds of intellectual tasks required in history courses or their inability to formulate arguments about the past in a manner of that is congruent with that of professional historians.

II. Evidentiary bottlenecks:
Students having difficulty in this area are unable to identify appropriate evidence, to relate it to its historical context, or to use it to support an argument.

III. Affective bottlenecks:
This bottleneck is present when students find it difficult to accomplish basic tasks required in a history course because of either a failure to relate emotionally to the material or because it raises powerful emotions that make historical analysis difficult.