Use or abuse of memory? Benefits of teaching historical thinking and implications for teacher training.

Historical thinking, from its Anglo-Saxon perspective, aims to promote a critical historical literacy for the 21st century, according to six key concepts: historical relevance, historical evidence, cause and consequence, change and continuity, historical perspective and ethical dimension. The objective of this study is to analyze the impact of a teaching methodology based on historical thinking in teacher training, according to the perception and knowledge of 70 Baccalaureate students. Following a quasi-experimental design with non-equivalent control group and pretest, this methodology was applied to a Treatment (T) group, while a traditional methodology was applied to a No Treatment (NT) group. After analysis with the Wilcoxon signed-rank test and some descriptive statistics, the results point to large differences in perception and knowledge between the pre- and post-test of the T group, compared to the NT group. In conclusion, it appears that the teaching methodology employed significantly influences how students feel they are taught, how they feel they learn, and how they actually learn. In prospective, more studies are needed to consolidate initial and continuing teacher training, implementing alternative methodologies based on historical thinking and introducing new variables of analysis.