There is increasing attention paid to improving students’ historical thinking (HT) competences in the UK. With this, there are several definitions and understanding of HT in the literature from all around the world. Among British history educators and researchers, for instance, HT refers to several aspects of disciplinary-based history teaching, In the United States, Wineburg (2001) defined HT as a systematic recognition process that the past is different from the present, and it has several distinctive and disciplinary procedures to make meaning about the past. In the present study, this term has been framed as teaching history in a way that equips young people with a set of abilities such as asking perceptive questions, weighing evidence, thinking critically, sifting arguments and judgement. Teaching HT had gained considerable interest in history teaching communities because of what it entails and its potential benefits. As HT involves processes such as examining historical sources, negotiating different perspectives, and resolving historical values with present judgements, it is essential for students’ cognitive development (Lee, 2011). From a social perspective, learning HT may equip and sensitise young people to understand the differences around them and to learn how to live with them peacefully and respectfully (Levesque, 2016). The roles of teachers’ self-efficacy and agency have been oftentimes found to be decisive factors in their decisions of teaching HT. 

 Although the popularity of HT within the history teaching circles, existing literature gives very little considerations to the conceptions and ideas of history teachers of teaching historical thinking and its influences on their practices. However, teachers play a vital role in this process as they are the meditators who are responsible for interpreting and enacting the curriculum (Harris & Reynolds, 2018; Monte- Sano et al., 2014). Although teachers’ role in this process is highly critical, the literature is quite limited in terms of how history teachers adopt the demands of official policies into their school curricula (Harris & Reynolds, 2018). Thus, it will be important to focus on the perspectives and behaviours of teachers associated with HT to provide further insights in this field. One of a few comprehensive studies exploring history teachers' thinking was conducted by Husbands et al. (2003). However, since then, the field of history teaching has seen many changes. Therefore, a new and updated study exploring history teachers' perspectives, specifically for teaching HT, can make an important contribution to the field. 

This study, therefore, aims to investigate the perspectives and approaches of history teachers towards teaching HT by raising and evaluating the question of what influences the decisions teachers make in terms of teaching historical thinking. Teachers' decision-making processes involves the process of taking action according to the specific intentions (Seixas, 2012). Therefore, at this point, the concept of teacher agency and self-efficacy become important aspects of teacher decision-making processes (Biesta &Tedder, 2007; Robinson, 2012). In this research, teacher agency is associated with their decisions and actions in relation to improving their teaching based on the new ideas and changes – more specifically HT.  Teachers’ self-efficacy also affects their decisions for the selection of curriculum, teaching strategies, and their general behaviours in the classroom (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001). Teachers’ sense of efficacy may shape their goals and their level of effort and desire that they invest in teaching in the classroom (Hoy, 2004). Therefore, teachers with higher self-efficacy are more likely to choose to apply classroom enquiries and student- centred teaching methods (which are very beneficial for teaching HT) to improve students’ learning. 

This research has been conducted with the qualitative approach by adopting constructivist and interpretivist paradigms. Ten history teachers have been chosen by using convenience sampling and were interviewed twice using online applications. During the first interviews, semi-structured questions and mind map approaches have been used. Additionally, the mind map approach utilised by asking ‘how do you go back teaching historical thinking in your classroom’ was helpful in this study to obtain diverse data. This approach was beneficial to gather insight about the ways participants see and construct their classroom practices such as reflecting their beliefs, experiences, and prejudices as well as understanding the subject (Kinchin et al., 2000). In the second round of interviews, the narrative approach has been utilised by asking ‘how is your understanding of historical thinking has been developed over your career’. The decision to use narrative approach as a data collection method in this research is based on the features that Cole and Knowles (2001) explained for research designs exploring people life histories and their change and progress in their lives. In the present study, it is intended to "advance understanding about the complex interactions between individuals' lives and the institutional and societal contexts in which they are lived" (Cole & Knowles, 2001:126). This method was beneficial for understanding the participants' experiences and motivations over time, by considering their individual, educational, professional, and social contexts. This method mainly helped to answer the third research question, as participants try to explain processes related to the influential factors on their decisions which lead them to teach HT or not. The analysis of data has been done manually by using deductive and inductive coding approaches. To determine teachers' level of agency, it is elaborated if they reflected their ideas on historical thinking in their teaching through the analyses of the schemes of work (when applicable) and the interview discussions. If not, then they were asked if they have any future plans or aspirations to do so. In terms of self-efficacy, teachers’ comments, and discussions related to the extent of their happiness with their current practice and the schemes of works have been associated with their level of self-efficacy.

In this study, a direct proportion was found between the level of agency and self-efficacy of the history teachers and their willingness and attempts to teach HT in their lessons. While teachers with a high level of agency and self-efficacy tend to engage with HT, teachers with a lower level of agency and self-efficacy were found to be hesitant to teach HT. Four categories were identified in which teachers were able to manifest their agency in teaching HT in the current educational climate amongst history teachers in England; and they are innovators, practitioners, exam-oriented teachers, and content coverers. The reason behind these different categories seemed to be related to the strong and iterative relationships between teachers' individual mechanisms (i.e., beliefs, values, purposes, self-efficacy etc.) and external contexts (i.e., accountability, performativity workload, time issues etc.). Although particular external mechanisms (i.e., accountability, performativity) negatively impacted the content coverer and exam-oriented teachers' decisions for teaching HT, innovators and practitioners were able todetach themselves from these negative factors and showed a good engagement with HT. Findings showed that particular positive external contexts (such as supportive and collaborative working environments and sustainable relationships with their professional community of practices) and their internal systems (i.e., beliefs, self-efficacy) influenced teachers positively to be able to act more agentic in bringing change and improvement. However, this did not apply to the content coverer and exam-oriented teachers. The data showed that these teachers' external contexts (i.e., unsupportive, and isolated working environment, lack of professional network and guidance) led them to adopt a low level of efficacy and this reduced their agency while shaping their practices for teaching HT. These factors affected teachers’ decisions, in particular content and pedagogy, in their practice. This study highlighted the importance of teacher training, sustainable professional development activities and professional networks for helping teachers to become forward-thinking, innovative, and professional teachers.

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