UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI
Faculty, Department
Faculty of Education Department of Teacher Education
Author
Klockars, Laura Signe Maija
Title
The Explorers in Heureka: an analyses of historical thinking of sixth-grade pupils
Subject, Level, Month and year, Number of pages
Education M.A.Thesis February 1998 93 p. (2 app.)
Abstract
The aim of the study was to find out whether the goals and purposes of the exhibit designers correspond with the visitor receptions. Through this study the suitability of think aloud –method in the research of historical thinking was also clarified.
As a theoretical background, history was examined as science and in teaching as well as from the point of historical empathy. In addition, museological and science centre philosophical aspects were investigated. Think aloud –method was used as a research method. The principles of the method are that subjects report their thoughts aloud while the influence of the interviewer is minimized. This method has been used previously in science centre settings in examining scientific thinking (Luostarinen 1996).
The data was collected in March 1996 in the science centre Heureka during the temporary exhibition “Nordic Explorers”. The data consists of think aloud products of 22 sixth-grade subject pairs. The data was analysed from the point of reception. The subject pairs visited three exhibits independently and reported their thoughts aloud on a c-cassette.
The exhibit objects selected in the study generated mostly thinking on the level of everyday empathy, which represent the average level of historical thinking. The aims of the exhibit designers were partly accomplished, as more than half of the subject pairs received average results or results higher then the average, assessed with the empathy scale of Ashby & Lee. Only few of the subject pairs showed the most developed level of historical empathy thinking. The results confirm the conceptions of Ashby & Lee that the level of historical explaining is dependent on the subject-matter of a task, in this case the exhibit.
The results of the study proved that think aloud –method was suitable for examining the receptions of the exhibit visitors. Parallel with large sample visitor studies, data collected by the think aloud –method can bring new aspects to exhibition evaluation and to developing exhibitions to correspond to the needs and thinking of different age groups.
The most important historiological references were Ashby & Lee and Pilli. Important museological and museopedagogical references were studies by Sola and Hooper-Greenhill. In the branch of science centre philosophy volumes by Falk & Dierking, Persson and Salmi were important. The studies of Luostarinen, Jääskeläinen and Ericson & Simon were the most important from the point of research method issues.
Keywords
Think aloud –method, science centre, empathy, reception, museology
Where deposited
The Library of the Faculty of Education (also available at Heureka, the Finnish Science Centre)
