The development of a computer-assisted course in historical methodology

Abstract

The History Department at Barnard College, Columbia University, developed a cours e that employs microcomputers in support of undergraduate instruction in America n history. The primary goals of the use of computers were to get students to think of history as an ongoing intellectual activity, to acquaint them with various methods , particularly quantitative methods used by historians, and to train them in how t o arrive at conclusions of their own. Using SPSS/PC, students analyze datasets to tes t a number of historical interpretations that have been especially influential in th e discipline . By this method, students construct their own interpretations of an historical development which they can then set against the standing ones . To the extent that students seize the means to both write and interpret history, they take a giant step in their intellectual empowerment . This we take as the primary goal of an undergraduate liberal arts education .