The Ghanaian senior high-school history curriculum encourages teachers to guide students to explore, question and construct historical interpretations, rather than accept established historical narratives. This study investigates how those teachers conceive and implement the curriculum intent by exploring their pedagogical reasoning and classroom practices. The project described in this paper draws from a range of investigative instruments including in-depth interviews, classroom observations, post-lesson interviews and teachers’ planning paperwork from 15 public senior high schools in Ghana’s Central Region. This research found that teachers’ pedagogical reasoning was consistent with constructivist educational theory as well as responsive to the history curriculum, but that their stated understandings did not align with classroom practice. The findings indicate limited constructivist strategies in history lessons, as most teachers were didactic in approach and tended to teach history as a grand narrative.

Purpose: This conceptual article aims to examine the application of interpretative phenomenology to research on teacher experience. It covers methodological theory and practical interpretative approaches that are pertinent for generating useful insights into an educational issue.Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on an illustrative research on secondary teachers' disciplinary and pedagogical reasoning and classroom practices in Ghana, this article explores the author's musings and introspection around carrying out an interpretative phenomenological research and demonstrates how the approach helped to amplify teachers' voices.Findings: The article demonstrates that the canons of interpretative phenomenology and qualitative research in general, while translatable to practice, need to be regarded as a series of emergent decisions and actions rather than prescriptive set of principles. The article explains that educational researchers must recognise interpretation as the lifeblood of the approach and move beyond the description of essences and explicate participants' experiences of phenomena using workable frames of interpretation.Originality/value: The article extends the current methodological knowledge base by contributing to international discussions on qualitative research and to an understanding of the applicability of interpretative phenomenological research design to research on teacher reasoning and practice. It also serves as a useful methodological resource for novice researchers.

This article employs historical records, cultural traditions, and insights from recent interviews with history teachers to trace the beginnings of history teaching and the political landscape that has shaped school history and history curricula in Ghana. The article argues that history education in Ghana has survived the ravages of time, Western historiographical ideals and imperialist ambitions as well as politically motivated legislations and reforms. The article concludes that history education is regaining its grounds in Ghanaian schools and raises implications for teacher education and resource provision in schools. The article contributes to an understanding of the evolution of history education in Ghana and the impact of colonial and political forces on curricula, teaching and learning of African history. Keywords: Ghana; Education reforms; History curriculum; History education; Teacher education; Schools

History teaching and learning make intellectual demands on both teachers and students, requiring them to travel back in time and engage with complex issues and distant lifestyles. History education research advocates the use of approaches that portray History as an intellectually engaging subject but the application of cognitive research to History has not received much attention in recent times. This article focuses on the role of cognitive psychology in the teaching and learning of History and argues for a linkage between Piaget’s concept of intellectual development and History pedagogy. The article suggests that even though the application of substantive and procedural concepts are necessary for attaining historical understanding, thoughtful consideration of the cognitive processes of knowledge construction is essential for progression in thinking and understanding.

Thissystematic quantitative literature review spans 2013 to 2023 and includes 40research articles that meet all eligibility criteria. It explores theintersection of virtual reality (VR) and history education, serving as ascoping of the field, discovering key contributors, publication trends,research types, geographic distribution, participant demographics, educationallevels, research methods and designs, key findings, and thematic relationshipsamong key concepts. The key findings indicate a surge in VR-relatedhistory/social studies research, with Europe leading in contributions, followedby Asia, North America, South America, Africa, and Oceania. Students were theprimary research participants in the studies included in the review, with themajority of the studies empirical research. The majority of studies focused onhigher education and were conducted utilising quantitative methods andexperimental research design. The findings reveal that VR significantlyenhances learning experiences, historical thinking skills, and positiveattitudes toward VR and the history subject.