Impact of Disciplinary Literacy Pedagogy on Student Historical Content Learning: A Mixed Methods Research Study

This study sought to assess if a disciplinary literacy (DL) teaching intervention could increase student historical content learning. The purpose of this study was to help make recommendations for usage of DL teaching strategies in the future. DL is a new and promising teaching strategy that has a multitude of research-backed benefits. However, DL adoption has been hampered by a lack of clarity on if DL can improve student content learning and test scores. This study used mixed methods methodology. Quantitative assessment was utilized for a quasi-experimental pre- and post-test design to assess the impact of a two-week DL teaching intervention on student content test scores. Qualitative investigation was utilized for a series of semi-structured teacher interviews of teachers at the local study site to assess teacher perceptions and beliefs about DL teaching. Teacher perceptions and beliefs about DL teaching are known to be mixed and investigation of the local school environment towards DL was valuable for helping to understand the quantitative intervention results. This study found the DL teaching intervention to be successful in creating higher growth in the experimental group. Additionally, the local school culture was found to be strongly pro-DL, indicating student participants likely had already been exposed to DL teaching prior to the study period. The strong pro-DL environment of the study site was an unexpected and significant variable, likely minimizing the measurable impact of the study intervention and increasing the significance of the stronger measured growth in the experimental group. Implications of the results of this study suggest DL teaching strategies should be considered for further and expanded usage by local school districts. Recommendations for future research include seeking to assess the impacts of DL teaching in different contexts, including different subject areas and different teaching environments that are not currently as favorable toward DL strategies.