Image interpretation scaffolds support adolescents’ historical reasoning

Image interpretation scaffolds and mind mapping may support students’ historical reasoning. Benefits of such approaches are, until present, not empirically tested. This quasi-experimental study compared effects of three conditions: a sequenced image interpretation scaffold, a flexible image interpretation scaffold, and mind mapping on students’ historical reasoning about and with images. Participants were adolescents (secondary school students, N = 145, M age 13.9 years). Historical reasoning was assessed with a writing task. Participants interpreted three photographs over three time points. At T1, students had no support. At T2 and T3, students interpreted an image with the randomly assigned condition. Students’ interpretative essays were rated to assess historical reasoning. Image interpretation scaffolds better supported historical reasoning than mind mapping. Both interpretation scaffolds enhanced historical reasoning. Particularly the flexible image interpretation scaffold appeared to benefit contextualization and the description of the relevance of the image message for the present. However, effects of the flexible scaffold were not stable over time. Image interpretation scaffolds seem beneficial to support students’ interpretation of historical images. Further research needs to investigate how image interpretation scaffolds support historical reasoning for different types of images. • Historical reasoning was investigated when inspecting images (historical photographs). • Historical reasoning was measured three times with an inquiry-based writing task. • Effects of two image interpretation scaffolds were compared with a mind mapping support. • Image interpretation scaffolds supported historical reasoning better than mind mapping. • A flexible scaffold appeared more promising than a sequenced scaffold.