Exploring Student Historical Thinking Skills and Awareness in Bohol’s Resistance Movements (1621-1829)

Historical thinking skills are fundamental for enabling students to engage critically with the past, yet their connection to local history awareness remains underexamined in the Philippine context. This study explores the relationship between undergraduate students’ awareness of two pivotal resistance movements in Bohol – the Tamblot Revolt (1621–1622) and the Dagohoy Rebellion (1744-1829) – and their self-reported proficiency in three core dimensions of historical thinking: time and chronology perception, historical inquiry, and historical empathy. The research surveyed 275 students enrolled in the Readings in Philippine History course at a state university in Central Philippines during the first semester of the 2024-2025 academic year. The Historical Thinking Skills Scale (HTSS) measured self-perceived competencies via a Likert-type instrument covering temporal ordering, source analysis, and affective perspective-taking. Awareness of the local movements was assessed through a tailored multiple-choice test, calibrated via pilot-item analysis to ensure adequate difficulty, discrimination, and reliability. 61.1% of participants fell into the “Completely Unaware” category, while only 22.5% demonstrated “Excellent Awareness.” Conversely, a majority of students reported “Good” to “Excellent” skills in historical inquiry (87%) and time perception (69%), though fewer (68%) achieved comparable levels in empathy. Spearman’s Rho correlation coefficients indicated negligible, non-significant associations between awareness scores and each historical thinking dimension (ρ ranging from –0.024 to 0.002, p > 0.05). Although students may self-report general historical thinking abilities, they often lack specific knowledge of locally significant events. The absence of a significant relationship underscores the compartmentalization of local history within the broader narrative of Philippine history education.