Research into students’ understanding of the central concepts of history began in the 1960s. However, it was not until the 1970s, and the connection with the study of students’ understanding of central concepts in natural sciences, that the research gained traction. The author discusses higher-order concepts such as evidence, empathy and cause as discussed in other chapters in the volume, and describes the learner’s reasoning, not as a lower form of functioning as others have described it, but as a different context that is not necessarily poorer. For example, not all reasoning done by children is ‘childish’; there are cases of elaborate thinking among both children and the uneducated. It is difficult to understand how and why people reason the way they do when presented with problems in a specific discipline, especially when the researcher knows the ‘right way’ to solve the problem. The author suggests that researchers look at the differences between the descriptions of a problem as explanations that occur within different settings. Therefore, researching children’s ideas and reasoning skills would not be fruitless but, rather, would be an exploration of the different ways of viewing and understanding the world.