Inquiry-based Learning with a Digital Humanities Research Platform’s Support to Facilitate Students’ Historical Investigation Performance

A historical investigation is a kind of inquiry-based learning, aiming to guide students’ reading and analyzing processes of historical text to enhance the historical thinking. For this reason, a Digital Humanities Research Platform for Mr. Lo Chia-Lun’s Writings (DHRP-MLCLW) with Perspective Change and Chronological Division Tool (PCCDT) is used for assisting senior high school students in inquiry-based learning activities of history course. It is expected to help learners understand historical investigation issues from different perspectives and aspects as well as enhance learners’ understanding and inquiry abilities of interpreting historical text and context. With a pre-experimental research design, a total of 13 Grade 10 students in a senior high school in Taipei City, Taiwan, were recruited as the research participants for DHRP-MLCLW with PCCDT supported history inquiry course to examine whether learners significantly promote inquiry-based learning performance and to investigate students’ learning satisfaction. Furthermore, lag sequential analysis (LSA) is applied to explore the effective behavior transition mode of learners with high learning performance. Semi-structured interview is also utilized for understanding learners’ perception and suggestions about using the DHRP-MLCLW with PCCDT for history inquiry course. The research results show that DHRP-MLCLW with PCCDT supported history inquiry course could effectively enhance learners’ learning performance and led to highly positive learning satisfaction. Moreover, the LSA results reveal that compared with the learners with low learning performance, the behavioral patterns among those with high learning performance using the DHRP-MLCLW with PCCDT for inquiry-based historical investigation better reflect the spirit of inquiry-based learning.