Thematic vs Chronological History Teaching Debate: A Social Media Research


  •  Ibrahim Turan    

Abstract

At the beginning of the 19th century, history education has found its place as an independent course in formal education institutions, since then it has undergone many reforms and revisions but none of these reforms has solved its chronic problems. In discussions on how to solve the problems of teaching history, one of the most important issues is whether history should be taught chronologically or thematically. The purpose of this research is to review the discussions on this topic in Internet blogs to examine teachers’ views on the advantages and disadvantages of these two approaches. The social media research method was applied in this research. Required data obtained through teachers’ blogs on thematic and chronological history teaching and teachers’ comments on the subject in these blogs. The thematic content analysis carried out with the NVivo program, which helped in-vivo codes emerged from teachers’ blogs and comments. Most of the 71 teachers whose remarks are referenced in the research have expressed a positive view on thematic history teaching, although it is more difficult to understand and apply. Some teachers proposed a mixed approach in which the thematic and chronological approach is combined in different order and proportions based on students’ grades.



This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
  • ISSN(Print): 1927-5250
  • ISSN(Online): 1927-5269
  • Started: 2012
  • Frequency: bimonthly

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