"Just imagine...'' Exploring externalized learner-generated images of the past in secondary history education

History learning can benefit from historical imagination. Constructing a concrete image of the past can support students understand the past, and help them engage with the past. This thesis is about externalized student-generated images of the past in the context of different imagination tasks. We focused on writing and drawing tasks through experimental studies and a drama activity through a case study. We explored the images of the past the students produced in the form of written texts, drawings and film clips, as well as the students’ perceptions of these tasks.
Findings show that four components can be seen as indicators of the historical plausibility of students’ images of the past: (1) physical environment and characteristics of people (what the past looked like; buildings, clothes etc.), (2) actions and interactions of people within their historical context (what people did), (3) motives within their historical context (why people acted the way they did), (4) thoughts and feelings (how people experienced the past). Depending of the type of task, the amount of each of these components that is necessary for a historically plausible image can vary.
Students report they perceive historical imagination as a useful activity because “you learn a lot” when constructing an image of the past (e.g. historical knowledge and understanding, comparing the past and the present and imagining other people's lives). Students in all types of tasks struggled to express their mental image in an externalized form. However, when elaborating their own products, students’ mental images appeared to be more rich than their externalized images.