Abstract:
To 1) develop an instructional process by using historical method to enhance historical thinking skills of eighth grade students, and 2) study the quality of the developed instructional process on historical thinking skills. The researcher developed the instructional process by analyzing and synthesizing basic information concerning the curriculum, historical instruction, and related approaches and theories. Then the instructional process by using historical method were developed. The process was experimented with eighth grade students in The Demonstration School of Silpakorn University. The samples were 80 students which were divided into two groups with 40 students in the experimental group and 40 students in the control group. The duration of the experiment was 15 weeks long. The research instruments were tests of historical thinking skills. Data were analyzed by using arithmetic mean, standard deviation, t-test, and content analysis. The findings were as follows: 1. The developed instructional process consisted of 5 steps, namely: 1) the discussion on the issue of the study, 2) the analysis of the essential primary evidence, 3) the comparison of data, 4) interaction with the historical evidence, 5) report the findings. 2. The quality of the developed instructional process on the results of implementing the developed instructional process were: 2.1 historical thinking skills of students after learning from the developed instructional process were significantly higher than those of before at .05 level of significance. 2.2 historical thinking skills of students in the experimental group after learning from the developed instructional process were significantly higher than those of students in the control group at .05 level of significance. 2.3 historical thinking skills of students in the experimental group were improved. Students were able to determine the key questions, hypothesis, analyzing, comparision, and interpretation of the evidences and presenting of the study in time line pattern effectively.