Supporting Historical Reasoning in CSCL

In this paper we focus on how features of a CSCL environment can elicit and support domain-specific reasoning and more specifically historical reasoning. The CSCL environment we use, enables students to collaborate on a historical inquiry task and in writing an argumentative text. In order to support historical reasoning we compared two representational tools: a graphical representation (argumentative diagram) and a linear representation (argument list). As it is assumed that an argumentative diagram can support both cognitive and interaction processes, we expected that using this tool would result in more qualitative historical reasoning, in the chat as well as in the text. However, the results of this study did not show a significant difference in the amount and type of historical reasoning between the two conditions. A possible explanation can be found in the way the students make use of the tool while executing the task.