Effects of working with multiple eyewitnesses in history lessons on competencies, knowledge, and motivation: A cluster randomized controlled field trial.

Autor/inn/en	Totter, Katharina; Wagner, Wolfgang; Bertram, Christiane; Trautwein, Ulrich
Titel	Effects of working with multiple eyewitnesses in history lessons on competencies, knowledge, and motivation: A cluster randomized controlled field trial. Gefälligkeitsübersetzung: Auswirkungen der Arbeit mit mehreren Augenzeugen in Geschichtsunterricht auf Kompetenzen, Wissen und Motivation: Eine cluster-randomisierte kontrollierte Feldstudie.
Quelle	In: The journal of educational psychology, 118 (2025) 4, S. 624-649Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Link als defekt meldenVerfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1939-2176
DOI	10.1037/edu0000996
Schlagwörter	Einstellung (Psychologie); Schule; Lehrer; Lernen; Motivation; Lehren; Lehrmethode; Geschichte (Histor); Intervention; Zeuge
Abstract	Having eyewitnesses come to class is believed to motivate students, but prior research has identified potential setbacks (e.g., lack of multiperspectivity, students getting overwhelmed). This randomized controlled field trial aimed at addressing the affordances and constraints in ninth-grade history lessons in Germany. Fifty teachers were randomly assigned to one of three groups, with a total of 63 classes and 1,301 students. Teachers taught three lessons either with eyewitnesses who came to class in person (Intervention Group 1), a video of eyewitnesses (Intervention Group 2), or teaching as usual without the intervention (control group). In the intervention groups, students were exposed to different perspectives through two eyewitnesses who shared their everyday stories of growing up in different political systems, one in the former socialist East Germany and one in capitalist West Germany. Both interventions had no significant overall effect on historical thinking competencies and the perceived relevance of history. Students in both intervention groups knew significantly more compared to the control group about the historical topic taught only in the intervention group. Additionally, the in-person group rated the motivational impact of the intervention significantly higher than the video group. Exploratory analyses on historical thinking subtests suggested that intervention students understood the specifics of eyewitness accounts significantly better than the control group and that the in-person group was noninferior to the video group regarding historical thinking competencies overall (but not on all subtests). The study highlights opportunities and challenges in fostering motivation and achievement (especially complex competencies) via an eyewitness approach. Educational Impact and Implications Statement: Eyewitness encounters have great potential to engage students in learning history, but their widespread use contrasts with the limited evidence and potential pitfalls, including the risk that students may be overwhelmed by the eyewitness accounts. We employed a history lesson unit based on multiperspectivity, designed to reduce the risk of overwhelming students, and tested its effectiveness using three groups: students who met eyewitnesses in person, students who viewed the eyewitness accounts on video, and a control group that received regular classroom instruction. Overall, our findings suggest that our approach was successful in minimizing learning risks that can come with eyewitness encounters, but we also did not find substantial motivational benefits of in-person encounters with the eyewitnesses. This study is among the few to rigorously examine the effects of working with eyewitnesses and offers promising directions (multiperspectivity, authenticity) as well as valuable insights for learning with eyewitnesses in real-world history classes. (ZPID).
Erfasst von	Leibniz-Institut für Psychologie, Trier
Update	2026/3