NCEA Level 3 History flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Primary source

A document, object, or record created during the period being studied by a participant or eyewitness, such as a diary, letter, photograph, or official record from the time.

Secondary source

An account or interpretation produced after the events by someone who was not present, such as a history book, journal article, documentary, or museum display.

Reliability of a source

The extent to which a source can be trusted as an accurate account, judged by its origin, purpose, audience, proximity to events, and consistency with other evidence.

Bias in historical sources

A slant or partiality in a source arising from the creator's purpose, beliefs, or position; it does not automatically make a source useless if identified and explained.

Contested historical event

An event about which historians disagree over causes, significance, or interpretation, so that more than one defensible account exists in the historiography.

Historiography

The study of how history has been written, including the changing interpretations, methods, and assumptions of historians over time.

Long-term underlying cause

A deep-seated condition or development that created the preconditions for an event over years or decades, such as economic inequality or imperial rivalry.

Short-term trigger

The immediate event or decision that set off a longer-developing situation, often close in time to the outcome being explained.

Intended consequence

An outcome that the decision-makers or participants deliberately aimed to produce through their actions.

Unintended consequence

An outcome that resulted from an action but was not foreseen or planned by those who took it, often revealed only in hindsight.

Historical perspective

The viewpoint of a person or group shaped by their social position, values, beliefs, and the context in which they lived.

Significance in history

The importance of an event or person, judged by its impact at the time, its lasting effects, or its value for understanding the past.

Continuity and change

A historical concept examining what stayed the same and what altered over a period, and the pace and extent of that change.

Causation in history

The analysis of why events happened, weighing multiple causes and their relative importance rather than listing them.

Command word: describe

An instruction requiring the candidate to state features or characteristics of something, typically associated with the Achievement grade.

Command word: explain

An instruction requiring reasons, causes, or links between factors, typically associated with the Achievement with Merit grade.

Command word: analyse

An instruction requiring the breaking down of an event or interpretation into parts and examination of relationships between them, associated with Excellence.

Command word: evaluate

An instruction requiring a judgement about the worth, reliability, or significance of evidence or interpretations, supported by reasons, associated with Excellence.

Inquiry question

A focused, researchable question that guides historical investigation and can be answered with evidence rather than a simple yes or no.

Research process evidence

Documentation of how sources were located, selected, and evaluated during an inquiry, assessed alongside the final conclusions.

Annotated bibliography

A list of sources with brief notes explaining each source's content, origin, and usefulness to the research question.

Corroboration of sources

The process of comparing two or more sources to check whether they agree, strengthening or weakening confidence in their claims.

Provenance of a source

The origin and history of a source, including who made it, when, where, and for what purpose.

Audience of a source

The people for whom a source was created, which shapes its content, tone, and what it includes or omits.

Purpose of a source

The reason a source was created, such as to persuade, record, justify, entertain, or inform, which affects its reliability.

Hindsight in historical writing

The advantage of knowing later outcomes, which can distort analysis if it leads to judging past actors by knowledge they did not have.

Anachronism

An error in which an idea, object, or attitude is placed in a period where it did not exist, distorting historical interpretation.

Structural cause

A cause rooted in the organisation of society, economy, or politics, such as class division or colonial rule, rather than in individual decisions.

Contingency in history

The idea that outcomes depended on particular choices and accidents and could have turned out differently, rather than being inevitable.

Historical empathy

The effort to understand past people's actions and beliefs within their own context, without assuming they shared present-day values.

Revisionist interpretation

A later historical account that challenges or revises an established interpretation by re-examining evidence or adopting new perspectives.

Oral history

Recorded testimony from people recalling past events, valuable for personal experience but subject to memory lapse and later reinterpretation.