9HI0/04 - Choosing and refining a historical enquiry question

Coursework Enquiry Frame

The coursework component is 9HI0/04. It is worth 40 marks and 20 percent of the A-Level. It assesses AO3 and AO1: your ability to analyse and evaluate historians' interpretations, and your ability to use historical knowledge to construct a substantiated argument. There are no AO2 marks for evaluating primary or contemporary sources as sources, although primary material and contextual evidence can still help you understand and test historians' arguments.

The official focus is a chosen question, problem or issue. Those three words matter:

Pearson requires the final assignment wording to follow this pattern:

Historians have disagreed about [the chosen question, problem or issue].
What is your view about [the chosen question, problem or issue]?
With reference to three chosen works:

• analyse the ways in which interpretations of the question, problem or issue differ
• explain the differences you have identified
• evaluate the arguments, indicating which you found most persuasive and explaining your judgements.

That framework tells you what a strong enquiry question must do. It has to create room for three linked tasks. First, you must identify how interpretations differ: not just "Historian A says this and Historian B says that", but the real contrast in their arguments. Second, you must explain why they differ: perhaps because they ask different questions, define a concept differently, prioritise different evidence, use different timeframes, or write from different historical contexts. Third, you must evaluate which argument is most persuasive, using your own criteria and knowledge.

This is why an enquiry question such as "What happened during the Russian Revolution?" cannot work. It invites narrative. A question such as "Historians have disagreed about the causes of the Russian Revolution in 1917. What is your view about the causes of the Russian Revolution in 1917?" is more promising because it asks for explanation, comparison and judgement. Even then, you would need to check whether the available historians actually disagree in useful ways about the causes, whether they are dealing with the same revolution or different phases of 1917, and whether the topic is manageable.

Think of the question as a set of boundaries:

The strongest coursework is built when all five boundaries pull in the same direction. If the concept is causation but the historians are mostly debating significance, the question will wobble. If the timeframe is huge but the word count is short, the argument will flatten. If the topic interests you but historians have not debated it seriously, AO3 will be weak before the writing even begins.

Finding a Real Debate

A coursework enquiry begins with interest, but it cannot end there. You might be interested in the Black Death, the Meiji Restoration, the end of apartheid, the New Deal, the First Crusade, Stalin's rule, the British Empire, women's suffrage, or the causes of the First World War. Interest gives you energy. Debate gives you coursework.

Pearson is clear that the topic should be sufficiently complex and interesting enough to have generated disagreement between historians. This does not mean any disagreement will do. You need a disagreement that is historical, scholarly and usable.

Good coursework debates often grow from second-order historical concepts:

The debate also needs historical complexity. A question is too thin if all reasonable historians would answer it in the same way. "Was Hitler important in Nazi Germany?" is not a useful question because the answer is obvious. "Historians have disagreed about the extent to which the Holocaust was a long-term plan" is much stronger because historians can weigh ideology, wartime radicalisation, state structures, Hitler's agency, local initiatives and chronology in different ways.

The same applies to coursework on examined topics. It is permitted to choose a question related to content studied elsewhere in the course, but the coursework must not duplicate the historical interpretations section studied for Paper 1. If you study Paper 1 Germany and West Germany, for example, you cannot simply reuse the Paper 1 interpretations enquiry on Hitler's foreign policy and responsibility for war. The coursework must have its own interpretive debate.

You should also distinguish between a debate that exists and a debate you can handle. The origins of the First World War have generated a huge historiography, including arguments about German imperial ambitions, alliance systems, mobilisation timetables, Balkan nationalism, Russian policy and diplomatic culture. That is a rich debate, but it can become too large unless the question fixes a particular angle. "Historians have disagreed about the significance of German imperial ambitions in the origins of the First World War" is more workable than "Historians have disagreed about the First World War."

Scope, Chronology and Boundaries

A-Level coursework is long enough to develop a serious argument, but it is not a dissertation. The recommended assignment length is 3,000-4,000 words. That makes scope one of the most important decisions you make.

A strong enquiry usually has a clear chronological spine. This does not mean every question needs a long date range. Pearson allows coursework to cover a single key event, a few years, several decades, or longer, depending on the topic. The crucial point is that the dates must be historically meaningful.

Compare these examples:

Notice what the refined versions do. They name the judgement, set a historical boundary, and imply criteria. "By 1941" invites judgement about what counts as New Deal success before US wartime mobilisation transformed the economy. "1937-39" focuses appeasement after rearmament pressures intensified and before war broke out. "By 1924" creates a comparison between tsarist rule and the early Bolshevik state after Lenin's death. "1095-1120" links the First Crusade to the papacy's wider consequences beyond the capture of Jerusalem in 1099.

Chronology is also a way to test historians. If one historian judges the New Deal by unemployment in 1941 and another judges it by the creation of a long-term welfare-regulatory state, they may disagree partly because they are using different time scales. If one historian sees appeasement mainly through the Munich crisis of September 1938 and another through British defence planning across 1937-39, they may be answering different versions of the question. A good coursework question makes those differences visible rather than accidental.

Use three kinds of boundary:

The most common scoping error is to choose a question that is both broad and abstract. "Historians have disagreed about whether Napoleon was good for France" sounds debatable, but "good" is too vague. Does it mean legal reform, political liberty, military glory, economic stability, administrative centralisation, social equality, or the survival of revolutionary principles? The question becomes stronger when the judgement is made historical: "Historians have disagreed about the nature of Napoleon Bonaparte's domestic rule in France." This lets you define and test criteria such as authoritarian control, modernising reform, revolutionary continuity and personal dictatorship.

A second error is to use a date range that hides the argument. "1914-45" might look impressive, but it may make the assignment superficial if the debate really turns on 1917, 1919, 1933, 1936 or 1939. A shorter period can be more rigorous if it catches the decisive turning points. In history, a boundary is not a fence for convenience; it is part of the interpretation.

When refining a question, build a mini-chronology before committing:

You do not need to know your final answer at the proposal stage. You do need to know that the question creates a path to an answer.

Feasibility and Historians

A coursework question is only as strong as the research it allows. A fascinating question can still fail if there are not enough suitable works by historians, or if the works do not disagree in a way you can evaluate.

For Edexcel coursework, you must refer to three main works relevant to the chosen question, problem or issue. Each should be substantial enough to support the assignment, usually article or chapter length. The three works should be by different historians and should contain a range of views or emphases. You must also undertake supplementary reading, at least two further works, to help you form your own view and support your evaluation.