ARGUMENTATION IN PRIMARY CLASS WHILE WORKING WITH HISTORICAL SOURCES: THE DEVELOPMENT OF 4TH FORMERS’ ARGUMENTATION AND UNDERSTANDING HISTORICAL SOURCE ABILITIES

This research addresses the issue of development of argumentation and understanding historical sources abilities in 4th year classes. The theoretical section has revealed that the foreign studies propose to change educational system moving from the direct memorization, the knowledge reproduction to the knowledge interpretation, reasoning and using historical sources not only to obtain the necessary information, but to use it as evidence to create historical understanding. This approach is influenced by constructivism ideas, which encourage students to be active in the learning process. The basic idea is that history learning encourages students to think critically and defend their views by advancing sound arguments. When students is involved in argumentation process, they not only express their minds, but also they use language to improve their intellect and reasoning skills. We called argumentation as giving reliable arguments from historical sources to support statement. The aim of the research is to identify how argumentative skills changes while working with historical sources through well-planned educational activity. The following research methods have been employed: the educational and psychological literature analysis, the education program analysis and the questionnaire of the tasks (taking into account primary education curriculum in Lithuania) whose data have been investigated using the qualitative analysis methods. Organization of educational activities and repeated research on abilities. The conclusions show that 4th formers are sufficiently successful in giving statements and arguments to support statement while working with historical sources. They are insufficiently able to give sound arguments, because it requires to understand source's reliability. The additional educational activities have slightly contributed the improvement of the 4th formers' argumentative skills. They used the primary and secondary sources to construct a statement supported by the arguments and some evidence. Students have noticed that the arguments found in the primary sources are far more convincing and sounder than in the secondary sources. After this activity students are sufficiently successful in making a statement and giving arguments and reliable evidence to support statement. The research data have revealed that using historical sources in argumentation tasks developed not only argumentation (language subject), but also understanding historical source as evidence (history subject) abilities.