The Effect of Visual Narrative-Based Pear Deck Media on Students’ Historical Empathy in History Learning: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Abstract

Historical empathy is a key component of historical thinking that enables students to understand past events contextually by considering the perspectives, experiences, and social conditions of historical actors. However, history learning in secondary schools remains largely text-oriented and focused on factual memorization, which limits students’ affective engagement and contextual understanding. This study aimed to examine the effect and effectiveness of Pear Deck in enhancing students’ historical empathy in history learning. A quantitative quasi-experimental approach with a pretest–posttest control group design was employed. The participants were 60 high school students divided into an experimental group using Pear Deck and a control group receiving conventional instruction. Data were collected using a historical empathy questionnaire developed to measure cognitive and affective dimensions. The results indicated an important difference between the experimental and control groups, with a greater increase in mean historical empathy scores in the experimental group (M = 81.97, SD = 4.23) than in the control group (M = 78.17, SD = 2.97), and an effect size of 0.36 (high category). These findings demonstrate that the use of Pear Deck enhances students’ historical empathy through interactive visual narratives that promote emotional engagement, contextual understanding, and reflection on past events. A limitation of this study is that it was conducted in a single school with a relatively small sample, indicating that further research in broader contexts is needed to support generalization of the findings.