A Holocaust Website: Effects on Preservice Teachers’ Factual Knowledge and Attitudes Toward Traditionally Marginalized Groups

The Holocaust remains one of the most effective and extensively documented subjects for an examination of basic humanitarian issues. Knowledge is the key to an intelligent understanding of such a tragic passage in human history, the key to a wisdom that will never let it happen again. To address the need for quality, accessible information about the Holocaust, the Florida Center for Instructional Technology developed an extensive website titled The Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust. This study was designed to investigate the effectiveness of the website. Specifically, data were collected by way of pre and posttest measures to determine if access to The Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust significantly impacted the knowledge level or attitudes of preservice teachers. The experiment was conducted at the University of South Florida in the spring of 2000 with students (n= 115) enrolled in the Introduction to Computers in Education course. Students were randomly assigned to a treatment condition in which the experimental group used the Holocaust website to develop a lesson plan, and students in a control condition interacted with a website that was unrelated to the Holocaust. Students in all treatment groups were administered a criterion-based knowledge instrument and two attitude scales. Results suggest that more cognitive engagement with the content area may be required to impact a significant change in preservice teachers' knowledge or attitudes. ********** Holocaust Education The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Guidelines for Teaching about the Holocaust (2001) states, "The history of the Holocaust represents one of the most effective, and most extensively documented subjects for a pedagogical examination of basic moral issues" (p. 1). It is a series of events occurring recently enough in Western history that legible documents, photographic imagery, film, and survivor testimony are available to the instructor or curriculum designer with which to create authentic student activities. Teachers can use historical events such as the Holocaust to warn of the horrifying results of racial and cultural intolerance, and thus help maintain a democratic and tolerant society. Analyses of the Holocaust can touch on a number of currently relevant human rights issues ranging from cultural intolerance to racism. In a study conducted in 1996, a sample of male and female students from six secondary schools in South East England (n=43) were presented with a series of questions which were intended to explore their knowledge and attitudes regarding the Holocaust and Holocaust education (Carrington & Short, 1997). They found students generally felt that Holocaust education played an important role in teaching about human rights issues in a variety of contexts. To effectively teach the Holocaust, teachers must be given the chance to develop knowledge and attitudes that are needed. Particularly in the social sciences, preservice teachers need to have the skills that are required to initiate and facilitate dialogue on culturally sensitive topics such as race and racism (Howard & Denning del Rosario, 2000). In addition to a knowledge base, they need the cultural awareness and practical know-how to put that knowledge base to use. In a study conducted to measure preservice teachers' knowledge regarding issues related to multicultural education, Taylor (1999) distributed a multicultural knowledge test to 78 preservice teacher education students (n=78) enrolled in three sections of a Social Foundations in Multicultural Education course. The test was a 35-item, seven-point Likert-type response format measure of topics and issues central to multicultural education knowledge. The instrument response format ranged from 1 (none) to 7 (extensive) to measure knowledge of topics and issues central to general multicultural education. …