Education Commons^™

History Teachers' Perspectives Of Time Constraints, Engagement, And Relevance In The Curriculum, Christy Mimie Davis

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Over the last 20 years, many state school administrators have reduced social studies instructional time in favor of time dedicated to reading or math skills due to the pressure of standardized testing. The purpose of this qualitative case study, which was based on constructivist theories about learning and schema theory, was to analyze teachers' perspectives on teaching history lessons, in terms of engagement and relevance, while working within new time constraints. Purposeful sampling was used to select 6 teachers for interviews; all had experience teaching social studies courses at the upper elementary and middle levels in a public school district …