Abstract:

The present study aimed to examine the historical empathy experiences of students working on various historical evidence involving cognitive (historical context, perspective taking) and effective connections within the framework of a historical empathy model (historical context, perspective taking and affective connection). Educational case study design, one of the qualitative research methods, was adopted for the research. The study group of the research consists of 6th-grade students attending to a public secondary school in the 2019-2020 academic year. The study group was determined by the convenient sampling method, which is one of the non-random sampling techniques. The data of the research consists of written documents obtained from diary and story writing activities and participant observer notes. Documents were analysed in accordance with the stages of descriptive analysis method by making use of the historical empathy model of Endacott and Brooks. Results based on the historical empathy activity results that the level of perspective-taking skills of the students working on sources involving perspective taking and aeffective connections did not increase, they had difficulty in comprehending the historical context, and they were mostly inadequate for making effective connections in their narrative. As for those students who worked on sources involving historical context information and effective connections, their levels of perspective-taking skill as reflected by their diaries did not increase but their levels of comprehending historical context and making effective connections increased at a strong and acceptable level depending on the story activity. It was concluded that when historical context information involved in the respective historical evidence is decreased, this results in a decrease in students‟ written statements of taking historical perspective and making effective connections in their historical empathy activities, which also leads to an increase in descriptions containing presentism and anachronic narrative mistakes.

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