The cognitive levels in the History of Higher Secondary Education textbooks in Italy

Abstract

Research related to the acquisition of historical skills by students of compulsory education levels is of great interest today in different countries. The paper presents the first results of an investigation whose objective is to analyze the cognitive abilities required of students in activities within second grade Secondary Education History textbooks in Italy. The information analysis instruments are five books belonging to the best-selling publishers in Italy. The study design presents a quantitative descriptive approach, centered on average values through the statistical program SPSS v. 24. The main results indicate that in all the books analyzed the majority of the activities are of a low cognitive level and that, therefore, they ask the students to textually reproduce the conceptual contents of the textbook, which makes it difficult to learn critical and reflective historical thinking. These results coincide with those obtained in other European countries like Spain, Portugal and France.