Studies
Kerepeszki, Róbert
Historians, „Digital History” and Artificial Intelligence
This paper explores the relationship between „digital history” and artificial intelligence, looking at how the technological environment of the 21st century has changed and continues to change the work of historians. The increasing use of various generative AI tools affirms the relevance of the topic. The paper draws on recent international literature to reflect on the impact of digital history and artificial intelligence on the discipline of history, highlighting different applications (e.g. text mining) and the challenges that technological developments pose for historians. Finally, it argues that by improving digital research methods, applying consistent source criticism, and developing an appropriate communication strategy, AI may become indispensable to historical research.
Keywords: Digital history, artificial intelligence, historical science, digital history research, ChatGPT, challenges
Kojanitz, László
Developing Historical Empathy
As a result of human evolution, we all have a tendency for empathy. We have the natural ability to temporarily put ourselves in the position of others, to understand their feelings and perspectives. In this way, we can try to see the situation through their eyes and can be able to think with their heads, to a certain degree. However, this is only a potential facility. According to some research, more and more people don’t use empathy and even lack any internal impulse for empathy. This can be a source of increasing mistrust between people and escalating conflict. From the perspective of developing historical empathy, these circumstances pose both a challenge and an opportunity. One must anticipate that students are at various levels with regard to empathy, too. However, it may be the case for many that learning history may provide an incentive and an enjoyable experience for using empathy in everyday life, too.
Katona, András
The past and notable personalities of Hungarian history didactics IV
In the shadow of the Rákosi dictatorship – a szovjet didaktika vonzásában
At the end of the 18th century and early in the 19th century, the science of pedagogy unified until then, started to differentiate between educational and instructional theory. Later, a new branch of science emerged from didactics, the topics of which were defined in part by applied didactics and in part by the research of special instructional issues of certain subjects. A mutual relationship was formed between didactics and the newly emerging methods. Didactics were generalized from the results of certain methodologies, while the methods adapted these generalities, applied them and researched their specific conformity to teaching-learning principles in the instruction of certain subjects. Thus we have progressed from the method, via methodologies and subject pedagogy, to didactics. Scientific works on the issues of history teaching and learning appeared in German-speaking areas from the first half of the 19th century and in Hungary from the Age of Dualism. In the decades after WWII, history didactics became more or less an independent branch of science in Hungary and abroad, attached rather to the study of history in the West but to pedagogy in Hungary. We review this path of development from the start to the present day in our series exploring the history of research in the teaching of our subject, first based on the work of the most important Hungarian authors, and the coalescence of that work.
Following the radical changes in 1945, three distinct phases characterized the matter of education in the period until 1956 associated with the name of Mátyás Rákosi. Until 1948/1949, democracy was still alive, along with the hope of an “inwardly free, outwardly independent Hungary”, but after a resolution of the Central Committee of the Hungarian Workers’ Party in March 1950 condemning the Ministry of Religion and Education, the harshest Stalinist-Rákosi-ist period followed that meant the introduction of a Soviet-type of forced socialism affecting even education, which had remained a holdout. This left its marks on history teaching and didactics. Hungarian history instruction was transformed from the “teacher of life” to the “handmaid of politics”, and historical materialism was placed at the focus. Because of the loss of viability of our history didactics, our subject nearly became an obsolete science, while our textbooks became collections of information for “rote learning”. From 1953, the new period of Imre Nagy offered a glimmer of hope for an easing of the dictatorship in the area of education, too, as indicated by a party resolution in February 1954. Although certain favorable changes began in history didactics afterward, they lacked the time to develop. During a significant part of the given period, history teaching also had to adapt to the needs of the dictatorship, for which the Soviet historiography and (history) didactics, as well as history methodology, served as the main compass and standard.
Latest issues
References from the recent past of our history teaching VII
Detailed requirements of the matriculation examination
Draft – 1997
After the approval of the 1995 National Core Curriculum (NCC), which represented a paradigm shift for Hungarian education, the first draft of the requirements for the history matriculation examination was prepared at the National Education Institute’s Evaluation and Matriculation Examination Center, because the so-called input requirements recorded in the NCC were only regulated up to the age of 16 at the time, and the introduction of framework curricula were also introduced only in 2000. It is instructive to recall these at the time of the introduction of the new matriculation exam requirements coming into force in 2024, because that was the first attempt in the outcome regulation to establish a balance between curricular content and development (ability-related) requirements, laying the foundations for a competency-based regulation. Although the draft was not introduced at the time, precisely because of the later rollout of the framework curricula, it serves as a valuable document of the period on the path to the introduction of the new type of history matriculation exam in 2005.
Workshop
Illik, Péter
Bocskai’s War of Independence and Crown in Secondary School Textbooks
Bocskai’s War of Independence is a hotly debated topic in Hungarian historiography. Over the past 15 years, the academic mainstream has even questioned its traditional name in Hungarian, “Freedom Fight”, claiming that Bocskai accepted the crown offered by the Ottoman sultan. In the course of these debates, the content of secondary school textbooks has been brought up on a number of occasions with regard to alleged misinterpretations, legends and myths concerning the name, aims and results of Bocskai’s movement as well as the question of his crown.
This study examines Hungarian secondary school textbooks from the beginning of the 19th century to 1989, and includes an overview of textbooks published in the last 30 years as well. It concludes that (1) the narrative turn happened in 1945 (2) as the socialist textbooks started to intensify the anti-Habsburg narrative and emphasized the Hungarian movements for independence and freedom fights of the 16th and 17th centuries, although not in a unified framework. (3) The perspective of the academic mainstream dominates the text of our textbooks today. (4) Narrative pluralism and diversity appeared in the textbooks of the 19th century.
Keywords: Bocskai, crown, freedom fight, education, secondary school.
Dancs, Katinka – Majkić, Maja
Developing university students’ epistemological beliefs related to history – results of a developmental experiment
Epistemological beliefs related to history are fundamental components of historical thinking. These beliefs may be naive, subjective or nuanced, depending on whether history is seen as a copy of the past, the opinion of historians, or an interpretation constructed by historians.
The aim of our study was to develop university students’ history-related epistemological beliefs and bring them closer to a nuanced understanding of history. To achieve this, a course was developed that aimed to promote the development of beliefs through discussion of epistemological topics and inquiry-based learning.
The development of beliefs was evaluated with questionnaires and with the help of written self-reflective essays at the beginning and end of the course. The group-level outcomes show the effectiveness of developing nuanced beliefs which consider history as an active and constructive research activity. At the same time, the results highlighted that the course did not affect the participants in the same way.
Keywords: historical thinking, epistemological beliefs, intervention
Kőműves, Edina
Opportunities and challenges of using Artificial Intelligence in history education
The explosive spread and proliferation of artificial intelligence platforms based on large language models affect the entire world, naturally impacting history education as well. Concerned voices augur the depreciation of knowledge, decay and a labor market crisis. However, artificial intelligence exists and we have to face the challenges it poses in numerous areas. We will look at it as an opportunity to advance human knowledge rather than sacrifice or obliterate it. We will gather specific examples of how we can use chatbots as teachers in history education instead of prohibiting them, and how we can incorporate them into our practice in a way that encourages our students to use them ethically and critically.
Review
Szabó L., Dávid – Horváth, Kinga
Teacher Interaction in the History Class from the Students’ Perspective – pilot research
The theoretical part of the present study presents Wubbels’ model of teacher interpersonal behavior, which builds on Leary’s interpersonal personality model, since the model of Wubbels’ teacher interpersonal behavior could only be created through the adaptation of this model to the educational context. The basic objective of the present research is to adapt the 48-item version of the QTI questionnaire developed by Wubbels into Hungarian, during which we used a double back-and-forth translation, and then the questionnaire was checked by practicing teachers. In the first part of the research, we conducted a pilot study, where we wanted to verify the reliability and validity of the questionnaire. Two classes of a Hungarian-language elementary school in Slovakia participated in the research. It can be concluded that all variables can be considered reliable, as we obtained Cronbach’s alphas between 0.608 and 0.784 for all eight octants.
Keywords: teacher interaction, history teaching, pilot research.
