Validating the Effects of Narratives on Remembering and Explaining Historical Content

Abstract

This study investigates the affordances and constraints of narrative structures in the processes of remembering and explaining historical content, employing a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design and qualitative analysis with high school students. In Validation I, an experimental group was provided with a “rise and fall” narrative template as a guiding schema and was compared to a control group. The results indicated that the narrative group demonstrated greater effectiveness in both remembering and explaining historical content. In Validation II, another experimental group was introduced to the concept of “empire” and was compared to the group using the narrative template. While both groups showed similar outcomes in historical remembering, the concept-based group was less effective in producing coherent historical explanations. Nonetheless, qualitative analysis revealed notable similarities in the content and structure of explanations across both groups, suggesting that the concept of “empire” may have been implicitly embedded within the “rise and fall” narrative.