Study introduction and justification

The beliefs of the students of the Máster de Formación del Profesorado de Enseñanza Secundaria [Master’s Degree in Secondary Teacher Training] (MAES, in its Spanish acronym) are decisive to make sense not only of methodological problems, but also of the teaching of History itself. In this sense, the term “beliefs” is limited to the previous experiences the students have incorporated to their pedagogical culture, and especially their degree of involvement in their formative journeys so as to get their qualifications. To justify this, the collection and analysis of these beliefs about teaching processes and the didactics of History place us in the complicated process of initially training new teachers.

These concepts acquire a significant importance in this area, as they reinforce the incorporation of active learning methodologies into our teaching practice - the goal is to improve the student’s didactic training and professional skills (^{Domínguez, 2015}). In this process of professional teaching, it is necessary to deepen the experiential learning associated with the historical events they know about, as well as to ponder whether the conceptual and rote knowledge allows for a reflective attitude which boosts the problematisation of the particular contexts in which a teacher works (^{Montanares & Llancavil, 2016}).

These temporal concepts become essential in order to clarify what students know and how they want to gain knowledge historical time (^{Santisteban, 2007}). The historical perspective would imply a temporal/historical contextualisation which places the students in a particular event of the past. As ^{Seixas (2011}) points out, historical meaning is not indissociable from the past itself, but it is created from the relationship between the historian and the past. Thus, students benefit - and learn - from the inclusion of stories in their high school classrooms, which eases their participation in complex historical thoughts about topics with great emotional weight (^{Levy, 2017}). For their part, ^{Barca (2010}) believes that historical narrative manifests the similarities the narrator finds among the past, the present, and - occasionally - the future, from an individual and social point of view.

In short, it is a matter of interpreting the past and building upon the historical thinking by following the historian’s methods so as to learn the necessary tools for the professional practice of graduate students (^{Vansledright, 2014}). Historical thinking is not limited to remembering the facts and events of the past (^{Gómez Carrasco et al., 2014}). Such knowledge of the past and its historical understanding may imply the development of thinking skills far from conceptual memorisation (^{Sáiz Serrano & Gómez Carrasco, 2016}). Hence, from the point of view of narrative research and social memory, there is a close relationship between the areas of Social Sciences and Humanities (^{Liu, 2013}).

Undoubtedly, in the last decade, research in History Didactics has produced a significant number of works about the student’s education in History (^{Chapman, 2011}; ^{Gairín, 2011}; ^{Gómez Carrasco & Miralles Martínez, 2015}; ^{Hernández Amoros & Carrasco Embuena,, 2012}; Ibáñez- -Etxeberria et al., 2015; ^{Levstik, 2016}; ^{Prats & Santacana, 2011}; ^{Rivero & Souto, 2019}; ^{Rüsen, 2005}; ^{Schmidt & Barca, 2009}; ^{Seixas & Morton, 2013}). These studies establish a line of action that has been treated partially, without going deeper into such significant aspects as the construction of the professional identity of secondary school teachers or the development of skills for teaching practice. In fact, teachers are expected to have knowledge and attitudes which are implicit to their profession (Martínez De La Hidalga & Villardón-Gallego, 2015), as well as to prioritize educational skills over theoretical content (^{Blömeke et al., 2016}). For ^{Serrano and Pontes (2016}), in relation to this professional development, it is essential to motivate students for them to get involved in the performance of their tasks.

In this sense, historical education, in a formal context, allows secondary school students to act and reflect on the educational tools they will use in their teaching. As ^{Marques (2006}) indicates, it is necessary to ensure the understanding of (scientific) knowledge within a framework of understanding that does not renounce temporality, spatiality and contextualisation of data, so that we can confirm that the student are able communicate what they have learned from a historical point of view in the most appropriate way. In this regard, ^{Jiménez et al. (2018}) point out that didactic teacher training in teaching methods is an opportunity for teachers to learn and better implement these methods in their professional development.

To this end, the previous training of History teachers would have to be improved from the basic levels on, as well as oriented towards professional practice, which would favour the historical education of their future students (^{Sáiz Serrano & López-Facal, 2015}). In fact, the relationship between initial training and access to the teaching profession is a problem of great importance not only for future teachers and the education system, but also for the society itself (^{Lorenzo et al., 2015}). Also, initial teacher training must link this historical education to the reality of the university (^{Trigueros Cano et al., 2018}) and to improve the learning process through the relationship between university tutors and secondary school teachers. For its part, ^{Nóvoa (2009}) describes three training stages for secondary education teachers: the university degree, the Master’s Degree in Education and an initial period in teacher professionalisation.

However, teacher training by competencies should favour real situations to experiment with a less theoretical approach to historical disciplines (^{Estepa & Martín, 2018}). It is also necessary to meet the demand for changes in the work pace and to consider teaching innovation as an essential element in the training process. For their part, ^{Krichesky and Murillo (2018}) state that not all collaborative practices inspire substantial improvements in teaching or develop the innovation capacity of teachers. This largely confirms that collaboration as a strategy in educational practice reinforces the teacher’s autonomy and pedagogical skills (^{Imbernón et al., 2020}).

In this sense, learning about history should not be limited only to rote learning and reproducing historical content or past-based narratives (^{Sáiz Serrano & Fuster Garcia, 2014}). Regarding this, ^{Marques (2016}) warns that history, as knowledge of the past, is a process of building a narrative about that past, so it must create a climate of rapprochement between yesterday’s and today’s society. From this perspective, everything suggests that theoretical and practical training related to the teaching profession would need the coordination between universities and secondary education teachers (^{Imbernón, 2019}). Moreover, the teaching of history through the basic stages should combine the learning of historical knowledge and information with the development of historical skills or competences, derived from the work of the historian. It must be considered how the formation of historical thought in the classroom builds the students’ interest in history and the development of critical thinking (^{Gómez Carrasco et al., 2014}).

On the other hand, it should be noted that the training process of the MAES Students in the University of Córdoba is verified by means of a university or bachelor’s degree corresponding to the chosen specialty: Social Sciences, Geography and History. On the other hand, for a student to enrol in the Master’s Degree in History Teaching in the 3rd cycle of Basic and Secondary Education at the University of Porto, they must hold a university degree in History. In this way, the contents and skills acquired in their university or bachelor’s degrees must be curricularly reinforced with their postgraduate studies, where they must take the following subjects and credits (Chart 1):

These subjects need to reinforce initial training including curricular elements, theoretical content related to the specialisation, learning strategies, acquisition of skills, management of educational centres, methods of history teaching, all of which are necessary for their professional development. In relation to the particular case of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Porto, ^{Marques and Pinto (2018}) indicate that: “No Mestrado, destacava-se, como intenção final, o desenvolvimento de um marco conceptual estruturante e a familiarização com procedimentos vários que permitissem uma progressiva autonomia no saber-evoluir docente” (p. 18). In a way, as ^{López-Facal (2012}) points out, the complements should always refer to the secondary school subjects related to the teaching specialisation, not the academic specialisation in the university.

Therefore, the main objective of this study was to detect the beliefs held by the students of the Master’s Degree in Secondary Education at the universities of Porto, Portugal, and Córdoba, Spain, in relation to the learning methodologies considered most appropriate to implement in their professional future. In order to achieve this objective, the following specific objectives have been set: (1) to know the teaching methods they were exposed during their university training; (2) to identify their interest in relation to the knowledge of the past and its interpretation; (3) to investigate the academic difficulties they have in evaluating the historical contents, and (4) to analyse the didactic resources necessary to implement a historical-educational methodology.

Methodology

Results

The results of the tables analysed below have been divided based on two samples representing the universities of Spain and Portugal, respectively, in order to analyse the assessments of both groups of students and to respond to the objectives set out at the beginning of the study. In order to specify the first objective focused on knowing about the teaching methods being exposed to at the university, we have taken items 2 and 14 as reference. The results in Table 1 show that university education favours learning methods with a traditional approach at both the University of Porto (84.6%) and the University of Córdoba (85.6%). Also, students at both universities fully agree - with percentages of 69.2% and 74.6% respectively - that the participatory methodology benefits the acquisition of significant learning.

Items 9 and 10 have been selected to respond to the second objective. The first one shows some disbelief among Portuguese students (42.3%) to interpret the past through knowledge of history, while the percentage of Spanish students is higher (60.2%). In the case of item 10, related to the usefulness of direct and indirect sources in the knowledge about the past, the percentages were modest, with 23.1% for Portugal and 44.9% for Spain.

As for the third objective, items 18 and 19 have been chosen. The results of the two items reflect high percentages in Portugal with 96.1% and 84.6% respectively, and 94.1% and 86.4% for the Spanish students. Both samples fully agree that, in order to evaluate historical contents, the test is the main instrument regarding rote learning and conceptual knowledge.

About the fourth objective, we have selected items 4 and 7, devoted to the most appropriate teaching resources for teaching History. While the Portuguese students - with a result of 76.9% and 80.7% respectively - think that it is advantageous to make historical maps, text analyses, research works and the use of ICTs so as to teach History, the Spanish students raise these percentages, with 83% and 86.5% respectively.

Source: Prepared by the author.

GRAPHIC 1 PERCENTAGE COMPARISON OF THE ACHIEVEMENT OF STUDY OBJECTIVES AND ITEMS FOR THE SAMPLE OF PORTUGUESE STUDENTS 

Source: Prepared by the author.

GRAPHIC 2 PERCENTAGE COMPARISON OF THE ACHIEVEMENT OF STUDY OBJECTIVES AND ITEMS FOR THE SAMPLE OF SPANISH STUDENTS 

Discussion

The results of the study clearly show that the beliefs of students in Spain and Portugal play a conclusive role in detecting methodological deficiencies and lack of knowledge about the historical methods they can use in their classes. In this respect, the limitations of the study reflect that the learning acquired in their university studies has a traditional methodological background which makes them get used to working in a transmissive way so as to learn history through the use of conceptual procedures. Therefore, it is clear that, for a representative change in this methodological approach to happen, it must be accompanied by strategies favouring the search for solutions to problems experienced in the real world, as well as the application of research methods (^{Gómez Carrasco et al., 2018}).

According to the results obtained, it is difficult to analyse ongoing and past events, and to establish differences or similarities that make history a living and interesting discipline for students. Let us remember that circa 85% of Portuguese and Spanish students responded that the traditional and expository methodology plays a leading role in the teaching of History at university, while about 70% of them think that an active and participatory methodology favours significant learning. Therefore, the teaching methods implemented today still seem to give priority to the teacher’s narrative, the dictation of notes, and the theoretical test. Yet they agree to conduct research and use both digital resources and text analyses in order to interpret sources from the past.

Nonetheless, the conceptions of future secondary school teachers have a productive and common aspect - their positive answers in the items related to historical education and the practical impact it has on their professional training as History teachers. As indicated by ^{Molina Puche et al. (2017}), history becomes an instrument to transform reality and prepare students as critical citizens. However, the percentages related to the use of direct and indirect sources in order to facilitate knowledge about the past are only 23% for Portugal and 45% for Spain. This indicates their possible doubts about the role and learning potential offered by the sources, as well as the interpretation of the past through them.

As far as the evaluation of historical content is concerned, there seems to be no consistency in the evaluation processes from the point of view of either traditional or innovative methods. In this area, it is possible to find studies outlining the opportunities offered by teacher training in evaluation types and functions (^{König et al., 2017}). The research data are clear in showing that both groups agree - with percentages circa 95% - that the main instrument used to assess knowledge about History is a written, conceptual and rote test. Finally, the results related to the management of didactic resources in the teaching of History range from 76-86%, with the use of digital tools being the most widely accepted for working on educational competencies (^{Miralles Martinez et al., 2019}).

Conclusions

Despite the results of this study, the historical and methodological education of students at both universities raises certain questions about the educational practices they can reproduce in their secondary school classes. The methodological approaches they have learned about during their university training favour or hinder the acquisition of essential skills aimed to develop proposals and reflect upon teaching methods which improve them as teachers (^{Epstein & Salinas, 2018}). In this sense, the problems the students face when handling a more active methodology in their professional development depend not only on the training of their university teachers, but also on the priority given to conceptual content as opposed to competence work (^{Muñoz et al., 2019}). In this way, adequate initial training of new teachers would benefit from proposals leading to improvement and the design of actions aimed at addressing-from a historical perspective- the causes and consequences in the development of historical events.

Hereupon, the challenge of thinking historically lies in the university training of future historians in such stages as Primary and Secondary Education, and to acquire the benefits of historical training in citizen education (^{Gómez Carrasco et al., 2014}). In fact, from school to university, the students’ training acquires a fixed pattern of theoretical transmission which makes history a discipline marked by rote learning and conceptual aspects. This university training does not delve into the most relevant aspects for their future teaching performance, nor does it assess the skills needed to tackle real classroom problems (Gómez & Rodríguez, 2014).

Considering the work of ^{León and Molina (2017}), learning facts, dates and concepts by heart makes little sense in a society where information is available at any time. ^{Pinto and Pereira (2018}) studied a sample of 130 teachers who participated in a continuous training course on digital competences to teach in public schools from Basic to Secondary Education in Portugal. Among the expectations of this training experience, the advantages of digital literacy and the methodological principles implemented are discussed. The integration of ICTs was also analysed via the answers to a questionnaire by 192 students from the Master’s Degree in Secondary Education, Baccalaureate, Official Language Teaching and Vocational Training, as well as the Degree in Infant and Primary Education. It could be inferred that educational training in the use of new technologies had a positive effect (^{Roblizo et al., 2016}).

Despite the training in digital skills and their use in schools, the teaching of History continues to be attached to the demonstrative model and the written tests to evaluate conceptual contents. This raises future lines of research that remain open today and guide the learning focused on implementing active learning methodologies in higher education. Therefore, teacher training in historical education is necessary to improve teaching methods from a traditional practice to a more innovative one, as well as to strengthen the students’ initial and continuous training to develop those skills related to History.