The Nature of Historical Research

• The unique characteristic of historical research is that it focuses exclusively on the past.

Purposes of Historical Research

• Educational researchers conduct historical studies for a variety of reasons, but perhaps the most frequently cited is to help people learn from past failures and successes.
• When well-designed and carefully executed, historical research can lead to the confirmation or rejection of relational hypotheses.

Steps in Historical Research

• There are four essential steps involved in doing a historical study. These include defining the problem or hypothesis to be investigated; searching for relevant source material; summarizing and evaluating the sources the researcher is able to locate; interpreting the evidence obtained and then drawing conclusions about the problem or hypothesis.

Historical Sources

• Most historical source material can be grouped into four basic categories: documents, numerical records, oral statements, and relics.
• Documents are written or printed materials that have been produced in one form or another sometime in the past.
• Numerical records include any type of numerical data in printed or handwritten form.
• Oral statements include any form of statement made orally by someone.
• Relics are any objects whose physical or visual characteristics can provide some information about the past.
• A primary source is one prepared by an individual who was a participant in, or a direct witness to, the event that is being described.
• A secondary source is a document prepared by an individual who was not a direct witness to an event, but who obtained his or her description of the event from someone else.

Evaluation of Historical Source Material

• Content analysis is a primary method of data analysis in historical research.
• External criticism refers to the genuineness of the documents a researcher uses in a historical study.
• Internal criticism refers to the accuracy of the contents of a document. Whereas external criticism has to do with the authenticity of a document, internal criticism has to do with what the document says.

Generalization in Historical Research

• As in all research, researchers who conduct historical studies should exercise caution in generalizing from small or nonrepresentative samples.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Historical Research

• The main advantage of historical research is that is permits the investigation of topics that could be studied in no other way. It is the only research method that can study evidence from the past.
• A disadvantage is that controlling for many of the threats to internal validity is not possible in historical research. Many of the threats to internal validity discussed in Chapter Nine are likely to exist in historical studies.