Developing Students’ Ability to Read, Understand and Analyze Scientific Data Through the Use of Worksheets that Focus on Studying Historical Documents

AbstractWorksheets that focus on the analysis of historical data are made up of forms that enable students to read and analyze primary or secondary historical documents in terms of their physical attributes and content. While the physical attributes part of the worksheet contain questions about the type of the text, its name, date, place, author and its readers, the analysis of the main text includes questions that center on the content, on text's reliability and on questioning the credibility of the historical sources. Studying the documents with such questions, students get the opportunity to combine their own interpretation of the document with the scientific connections they’ve made and put it down in writing. That way it is possible to see what students have grasped from the text and follow the mental processes they go through during the whole task of analyzing it