What did you study?
I studied how teachers use primary sources when teaching historical thinking in international upper secondary programmes. The research focused on teachers in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) in Finland and the United States, as well as teachers in the U.S. Advanced Placement (AP) programme. The data come from teacher interviews conducted between 2016 and 2018, which reveal teachers’ experiences and pedagogical decisions in different educational contexts.
What were the results of your research? What is the main finding?
The main finding is that Finnish and U.S. IB teachers have very similar views on how primary sources should be used in history teaching. Source work is understood in a discipline‑based way, regardless of the teacher’s national background. This shows the strong influence of IB assessment on teaching practices.
Teachers reported that IB’s clear guidelines, assessment criteria, and shared international framework strongly shape instruction and define which historical thinking skills students are expected to learn. Together, assessment, guidance and collegial support strengthen analytical, source-based history teaching across different countries.
In the AP programme, teachers described major challenges, such as large content requirements, limited time and less pedagogical support. However, teachers who work in both IB and AP environments can transfer IB’s analytical methods to AP teaching. This helps promote historical thinking through sources even in more constrained settings.
How can the results be applied? What new knowledge does this research provide?
The study shows that the IB programme’s coherent assessment and pedagogical framework effectively support the teaching of historical thinking skills. The findings also show that these practices can be applied in other programmes, including AP.
For Finland, the research suggests that strengthening cooperation between national history education and the IB programme — and improving the alignment between curriculum and assessment — could support more analytical, skills-based history teaching in Finnish upper secondary schools.
FM Susanna Soininen’s doctoral dissertation in education,
“Teaching historical thinking with primary sources. A study on the use of primary sources in the US Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate and Finnish IB history classes”,
will be examined on Saturday, 7 March 2026 at 12:00 in room S212 of the Seminarium building at the University of Jyväskylä.
Opponent: Professor Jukka Rantala (University of Helsinki)
Custos: Senior Lecturer Matti Rautiainen (University of Jyväskylä)
Language of the examination: Finnish
More information:
Susanna Soininen, susanna.soininen@gradia.fi
