Hypergraphics for history teaching - Barriers for causal reasoning about history accounts

This paper investigates the uses of various kinds of hypermedia format for history learning, which specifically emphasizes on the role of causal reasoning about history accounts. Three different groups in the last school year of Secondary Education (aged 16) studied the same materials about the Discovery of America in three different formats: (a) linear text in paper, (b) conventional hypertext with a content structure in network, and (c) hypergraphic with an explicitly causal structure and guiding questions inserted in the causal connections. The results in this last group were better in almost every causal reasoning task, but no statistically significant differences were obtained. The design of graphic information and specific interrogations for causal reasoning in a hypergraphic format could exert some positive effects. However, this type of resources is not enough to succeed in implying students with little previous knowledge in self-explanation and review processes of their causal models about history accounts.