Talent development in history education

Purpose and context of the article

In the context of so much attention being paid to motivating non-history majors, we can lose sight of the role of apprenticeship in the profession. One of the crucial components of teaching history at the college and university level is training future historians. This article examines a significant educational challenge: how to identify and nurture students with the potential and interest to become professional historians.

In the United States, history education has several distinctive features that shape professional development in the field. These include a decentralised K-12 curriculum with significant state-by-state variation (Gross and Imel, 2024; Waters and Watson, 2016), a liberal arts approach to undergraduate education where students typically declare majors in their second year (Allen and Robbins, 2010; Beggs et al., 2008; Spight, 2020; Sylaska and Mayer, 2024), specialised master’s and doctoral programmes for professional training (AHA Career Diversity Fellows, 2020; Mendoza and Gardner, 2010; Reed and Horinko, 2016) and a diverse employment landscape spanning academia, public history institutions, government and private sector contexts (Baker and Lewis, 2020; Bartram, 2022; Brookins et al., 2019; Reichman, 2022; Rizzo, 2016; Shannon and Swafford, 2022). Currently, the field faces challenges, including declining undergraduate enrolments, political debates about curriculum content and a constrained academic job market, making the identification and cultivation of future historians particularly important (Alterman, 2019; Brookins, 2024; Grigoli, 2023; Kryczka et al., 2025).

While history departments worldwide face declining enrolments and questions about career relevance (Brookins et al., 2019), little research has investigated the specific pathways that lead to successful careers in the field. This gap is particularly concerning as many talented students may be directed away from history due to misconceptions about its professional viability or inconsistent preparation across educational levels.

This study, conducted primarily in the North American context, aims to understand how students who enter college with the goal of becoming historians, or students who determine this goal while in college, are trained, inspired and motivated. By examining when and how historical interest develops into professional commitment and identifying key influences that guide individuals towards careers in the field, we provide evidence-based insights that can inform more effective approaches to identifying and developing future historians at various educational stages.

Literature review

To frame our study, we must first define what we mean by talent development in the context of history education. Talent development refers to the process of identifying, nurturing and advancing individuals with particular aptitude or interest in a specific domain towards professional competence (Garavan et al., 2012). Unlike fields with clearly defined pathways, talent development in history involves a complex interplay between formal education, mentorship experiences, self-directed learning and practical application. This concept is particularly relevant to history education given the gap between general historical education and professional preparation. For our purposes, we examine talent development as it connects to several related concepts: historical curiosity (the initial interest that draws individuals to historical content), motivation (what sustains engagement with historical study over time), mentorship (the guidance that shapes historical thinking and professional identity) and the progressive development of historical knowledge, skills and expertise. Drawing on Subotnik et al.’s (2023) talent development megamodel (TDMM), we recognise that talent development in history involves not only the cultivation of interest and motivation but also the systematic acquisition of domain-specific knowledge, procedural skills in historical methods and disciplinary expertise that enables independent scholarly contribution. The TDMM emphasises how these cognitive, motivational and social factors interact across developmental stages, as individuals progress from initial interest through competency building to professional-level expertise in historical thinking and practice. These concepts form a developmental continuum where curiosity may emerge early but require appropriate educational experiences and mentorship to develop into professional commitment. Very little has been written directly about talent development for the history profession. This indicates an area where more research is needed, and this article aims to contribute to the discussion. This article draws on talent development research as it applies to other disciplines, as well as literature about training and professional development for historians once they have identified history as their professional path. While this article is based on a study conducted in the United States, it draws on international research.

Within educational contexts, talent development operates differently across various stages of learning. In early education, it may manifest primarily through nurturing curiosity and providing engaging experiences with historical content. At the undergraduate and graduate levels, talent development becomes more structured, involving specialised coursework, research opportunities and deliberate professional socialisation. Understanding this progression is essential for conceptualising how historians develop from interested students to committed professionals.

Early education plays an important role in fostering historical curiosity, which can emerge in young people and evolve over time. Angvik and von Borries (1997) assert that historical consciousness is developed in this context, along with critical thinking skills and political opinions. Historical consciousness goes beyond transmitting historical facts and knowledge to encourage students to engage critically with historical narratives and consider how history shapes the present and the future (Adriaansen, 2022; Ahonen, 2005). Popa (2021) emphasises the importance of historical consciousness in history education and argues that students’ engagement with history is influenced by their personal backgrounds and identities. Educators are encouraged to foster historical curiosity by acknowledging and incorporating students’ interests into the history curriculum to encourage deeper engagement and historical understanding (Löfström, 2023). Encouraging students to make historical connections to their own lives and current social issues helps make history relevant to students early in their academic careers (Dessingué, 2024). It is in this early stage of forming historical consciousness that students’ interest development can progress through Hidi and Renninger’s (2006) four-phase model: triggered situational interest; maintained situational interest; emerging individual interest; and well-developed individual interest. Influential experiences in history education play a powerful role in supporting students’ progression from situational to individual interest (Hidi and Renninger, 2006).

Evolving interest is among the factors that contribute to developing expertise in an academic context. Alexander’s (2003) Model of Domain Learning (MDL) emphasises the importance of creating learning environments with influential experiences where students can progress through three stages of developing expertise: acclimation; competence; and proficiency. When considering influential experiences in history education, researchers must also acknowledge the challenges educators face in the classroom. Many history educators develop a ‘practical epistemology’ as a result of curriculum requirements, societal expectations and institutional demands. This leads to a disconnect between educators’ beliefs and understandings of history as a discipline, and their classroom practices (Bachand et al., 2024). Since students’ views of history are shaped by their classroom experience, it is crucial that educators emphasise critical thinking and historical analysis over memorisation, despite the challenges they face. Scholars recommend professional development and teacher education programmes to better prepare educators to incorporate historical inquiry and critical analysis more effectively in the classroom (Brown and Hughes, 2024; Pageau, 2024). These approaches to history teaching provide students with influential educational experiences.

Much of the literature on talent development identifies mentorship as a key component. Asif et al. (2023) assert that mentorship in the postgraduate stage is crucial for helping students develop their research skills by providing resources and guidance. Scholars highlight the need for mentors to be properly trained and supported. In their discussion of professionalising mentorship relationships, Stoeger et al. (2020) also point out the importance of goal-setting and clear expectations between the mentor and mentee, and ongoing evaluation of the mentorship relationship. Subotnik et al. (2023) focus on the role of insider knowledge in their study of mentorship. They found that this insider knowledge played an influential role in career decisions for mentees, and that insider knowledge was important at various stages of their education and careers. This article also indicated the important role mentorship played in navigating academic and professional networks. Although this study focuses on careers in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), the role of insider knowledge in mentorship has clear applications to history talent development (Subotnik et al., 2023). Subotnik et al. (2023) define insider knowledge as ‘critical information about how to achieve success that is not available to the general public but is relatively well-known to individuals within the domain and to those who have access to those individuals’ (p. 84). Their interviews with accomplished STEM professionals revealed that insider knowledge operates differently across developmental stages:

• during K-12 years: it primarily came from family STEM connections and out-of-school research experiences; in undergraduate years, it involved guidance about course selection, graduate school applications and research opportunities

• during graduate school: it focused on advisor selection, professional presentation skills and navigating academic culture

• in early career internships: it centred on project management, collaboration skills and understanding institutional dynamics.

In history, similar patterns might emerge – mentors helping undergraduates understand different career pathways beyond academia, graduate mentors explaining the unwritten rules of conference presentations and publication processes, and early-career mentors providing access to professional networks. However, history likely differs from STEM fields in important ways: the academic job market constraints may be more severe; alternative career paths more varied and less clearly defined; and the interpretive nature of historical work may require different types of insider knowledge about engaging with contested narratives and public audiences.

Miller (2004) emphasises the importance of mentorship in history talent development by highlighting the need for career counselling and mentorship to prepare students as they navigate a rapidly changing job market. Building on the insider knowledge framework described by Subotnik et al. (2023), Miller (2004) concludes that the types of critical information about career pathways, professional expectations and field-specific strategies that prove essential in STEM fields are equally vital in history but often inadequately provided. Miller (2004) asserts that career development should be viewed as an ongoing process that continues beyond the time a student is enrolled in school, and that mentors should provide mentees with continuous support and resources to help them adapt to change in their careers and in the history field. This perspective aligns with Subotnik et al.’s (2023) finding that insider knowledge needs evolve across career stages, suggesting that historians, like STEM professionals, require different types of guidance at different points in their professional development – from understanding diverse career options as undergraduates to navigating institutional politics as early-career professionals.

Beyond the mentorship relationships Miller describes, scholars have also examined the formal educational structures and curricular approaches that shape historians’ professional development (for example, Denial, 2021; Miguel-Revilla, 2021; Mihelich, 1981; Murphree, 2018; Nuttall, 2021; Preston, 1983). The literature on developing professional identities for historians largely focuses on curriculum, training for teaching history, learning applicable skills, and demonstrating these skills and their applicability on the job market. Nuttall (2021) focuses on secondary education and explores the importance of pedagogy, curriculum, and extracurricular activities in fostering historical skills and interest as well as providing students with opportunities to apply their skills and knowledge. Miguel-Revilla (2021) indicates a marked difference between undergraduate history students, secondary education students, and pre-service teachers regarding how they view the relevance of their history education. He asserts that teacher training programmes should offer more meaningful engagement with history to enhance how students perceive the subject’s relevance (Miguel-Revilla, 2021). Murphree (2018) argues that history majors need to be better prepared for the broad range of postgraduation opportunities available to them and be equipped to explain how their skills in critical thinking, research, and analysis are applicable. He describes the course he developed, titled ‘Professionalizing History Majors’, which incorporates practical experiences, professional development and active learning to address these needs for history students (Murphree, 2018). Denial (2021) provides an example of this focus on skills development. In her study, she argues for the importance of prioritising pedagogical training for graduate students in history. She is critical of the approach taken by many programmes, which often prioritise research over teaching skills. Denial emphasises that pedagogical training is essential for historians entering academic careers, as teaching forms a core component of most historical positions, and that the communication and presentation skills developed through proper teaching training also strengthen historians’ abilities to engage public audiences in museums, archives and other professional settings (Denial, 2021).

Mihelich (1981) highlights the importance of career counselling for undergraduate history majors, noting the struggles and limitations of the traditional academic job market. He encourages history departments to develop resources and approaches that guide students towards diverse career paths beyond working as historians (Mihelich, 1981). Relatedly, Preston (1983) discusses the different career options for graduate history students outside of traditional academia, including roles in public history, government and the private sector. He argues that these students need to learn how to market the practical skills they develop during their studies, such as critical thinking, strong communication and research, to potential employers (Preston, 1983).

These approaches to history teaching provide students with influential educational experiences that can catalyse talent development through interconnected psychological processes. Historical curiosity serves as the initial spark that can trigger Hidi and Renninger’s (2006) first phase of situational interest. When educational experiences successfully maintain this situational interest through engaging pedagogy and meaningful content, students may progress towards emerging individual interest in history. This progression from curiosity to sustained individual interest represents the motivational foundation necessary for talent development. Within Subotnik et al.’s (2011, 2021) TDMM framework, these motivational processes interact with cognitive skill development and social factors (particularly mentorship) across educational internships. As students’ individual interest in history strengthens and deepens, they become more likely to engage in the deliberate practice and specialised learning experiences that characterise advanced talent development. Thus, the cultivation of historical curiosity through quality educational experiences creates the motivational substrate upon which more advanced forms of historical knowledge, skills and expertise can develop.

Theoretical framework: an integrated model of history talent development

Drawing on Subotnik et al.’s (2011, 2021) TDMM as our primary framework, we conceptualise talent development as a complex, long-term process that transforms potential into creative professional contribution through stage-appropriate opportunities and psychosocial skill development. The TDMM posits that individuals progress through developmental stages where different factors become critical: early stages emphasise potential recognition and basic skill building, while advanced stages require domain-specific expertise, psychosocial skills and insider knowledge to achieve creative productivity. However, history as a domain presents unique developmental characteristics that require integration with complementary theoretical perspectives to fully understand the talent development process.

For this study, we operationalise key theoretical concepts as follows:

• Talent development: the systematic progression from initial ability and interest towards professional competence and creative contribution in history (Subotnik et al., 2011).

• Historical curiosity: the initial spark of interest that draws individuals to engage with historical content and questions.

• Sustained motivation: the psychological factors that maintain engagement with historical study despite challenges and setbacks.

• Insider knowledge: critical information about professional pathways, expectations and strategies that is known within the field but not readily available to outsiders (Subotnik et al., 2023).

• Mentorship: guidance relationships that provide both domain-specific knowledge and professional socialisation.

• Professional identity: the development of self-concept as a historian, including understanding of role expectations, career pathways and field-specific practices and values.

These theoretical concepts operate synergistically within the TDMM framework. Historical curiosity and sustained motivation correspond to the TDMM’s early stages of potential recognition and basic skill development. As students progress, the cognitive demands described by Alexander’s (2003) MDL interact with Hidi and Renninger’s (2006) interest development stages, while the development of historical consciousness (Ahonen, 2005; Popa, 2021) provides domain-specific cognitive foundations. Throughout this progression, insider knowledge and mentorship become increasingly crucial in the TDMM’s advanced stages.

This theoretical foundation guides our empirical investigation, which examines talent development in history through a developmental framework aligned with the TDMM stages:

1. Curiosity emergence and evolution: when and how historical curiosity develops from childhood through early career, recognising that unlike fields requiring early specialisation, historical interest may emerge later due to cognitive developmental requirements.

2. Stage-specific influential experiences: the progression of educational and experiential factors that support talent development from K-12 through early career, with particular attention to how these change as individuals move from potential recognition to professional competence.

3. Mentorship and insider knowledge transmission: how guiding relationships provide both emotional support and critical professional information, transforming general interest into informed career commitment.

4. Professional identity formation: the process through which individuals develop self-concept as historians, including understanding of diverse career pathways, field expectations and professional practices.

This integrated framework recognises that while the TDMM provides the overarching developmental structure, the specific mechanisms of interest development, cognitive growth and domain-specific skill acquisition explain how talent development unfolds uniquely within the history discipline.

Research objective 1: identifying when talent development for a career in history should begin

To address when talent development for a career in history should begin, we examined participants’ retrospective reports of formative experiences across educational internships. While our cross-sectional design cannot establish causation or definitively determine optimal timing, the patterns of reported experiences provide insights into when participants recall meaningful developmental influences occurring. These experiences often served dual purposes – building historical knowledge and skills while simultaneously sparking or deepening interest in the field.

Participants mentioned experiences from different educational stages with varying frequency: elementary school (six mentions, 3.68% of total mentions), middle school (14 mentions, 8.59%), high school (29 mentions, 17.79%), undergraduate (39 mentions, 23.93%), graduate school (77 mentions, 47.24%) and early career (44 mentions, 27%). This pattern suggests that while some historians identify early educational experiences as significant, the majority point to higher education and early career experiences as most formative in their professional development. However, this finding must be interpreted cautiously given potential recall bias, as our sample consists predominantly of mid- to late career professionals (median age 55–64) who may have clearer recollections of more recent educational and career experiences than early childhood influences.

Participants rated the relative importance of various experiences on a five-point Likert scale (1 = Not influential to 5 = Extremely influential). Based on mean ratings, certain experiences emerged as particularly significant at different educational stages. These quantitative ratings were complemented by qualitative descriptions from both survey responses and focus group discussions to provide context for why certain experiences were considered important.

Table 3 summarises the progression of influential experiences across educational stages, showing both the frequency of mentions and the relative importance of different factors at each stage. It highlights how both the quantity and nature of influential experiences evolve as individuals progress from elementary school through early career.

Early childhood and elementary education

Our findings indicate that historical curiosity can begin to take root at a very young age, earlier than suggested by traditional models that emphasise adolescence and early adulthood as the primary periods for developing sustained academic interests (Alexander, 2003; Hidi and Renninger, 2006). This pattern aligns with both Hidi and Renninger’s (2006) concept of triggered situational interest and the TDMM’s emphasis on early potential recognition through environmental factors. The family influences described here represent what Subotnik et al. (2021, 2023) identify as crucial environmental support that can either foster or hinder talent development in its earliest stages. Focus group participants mentioned specific experiences as early as second or third grade that sparked their interest in history. For instance, one participant recalled: ‘The first book I read in the second grade was called The Mystery of Hidden Creek about hidden Confederate gold … From that point on, I was interested in history.’ At this early stage, children’s curiosity is often ignited through a combination of experiential learning activities and family influences. These experiences serve the dual function of triggering initial interest while beginning to develop what scholars describe as historical consciousness – the foundational cognitive skills necessary for later historical thinking (Ahonen, 2005). While some participants described structured educational experiences, others emphasised family influence. As one historian explained: ‘I would go to the library and pull a book down and read as many pages as I could … They wouldn’t let me check it out because it was not in the easy section.’ This early self-directed learning contrasts with another participant who noted: ‘I don’t remember much about [K-12 education]. I would say I was taught by a football coach who did not know how to pronounce bourgeois and called it the “bourgois” and just read from the textbook.’

At this early stage, when historical curiosity does emerge, it typically develops through experiential learning activities (three references, 1.84%), though such early development was relatively uncommon among our participants. For instance, one participant credited the Indiana Junior Historical Society for providing interactive history lessons that allowed them to participate in archaeological digs, tours and architectural surveys from a very young age. Another mentioned how regular visits to local children’s museums ignited their interest in history and archaeology.

Importantly, the focus groups highlighted the significant role of family influence in nurturing early interest in history, an aspect not as prominently featured in our initial findings. Parents, grandparents and other family members often serve as the first introducers of historical concepts, sharing family stories, visiting historical sites together or encouraging historical reading.

Middle and high school

As students progress to middle school (14 references, 8.59%) and high school (29 references, 17.79%), the influence of engaging and encouraging teachers becomes increasingly prominent. The middle school years often represent the first time students encounter history as a distinct academic discipline rather than integrated social studies content. Focus group participants described this period as when they began to develop analytical skills and engage with historical evidence. As one participant recalled: ‘In eighth grade, we had a Civil War project where we had to research and present on different aspects of the war. That’s when I first realised I enjoyed historical research.’

High school represents a critical juncture where historical interest either deepens or dissipates. The focus groups particularly emphasised the transformative impact of passionate history teachers and specialised programmes such as Advanced Placement (AP) history classes. These experiences often solidified students’ interest in history and influenced their decision to pursue the subject further in college. One participant noted: ‘My AP US History teacher was passionate about showing us how to analyse primary sources and think critically about historical narratives.’ However, participants also described significant variation in high school experiences, with some receiving excellent preparation while others encountered uninspiring instruction that nearly derailed their historical interests.

The progression from middle to high school shows increasing sophistication in historical thinking, moving from basic content knowledge towards analytical skills that prepare students for college-level work. This developmental pattern aligns with cognitive research suggesting that advanced historical reasoning capabilities emerge during adolescence as students develop greater capacity for abstract thinking and perspective-taking.

Undergraduate and graduate school

The undergraduate years (39 references, 23.93%) continue to be a critical period for developing historical curiosity. The prominence of specific history courses and mentorship relationships at this stage reflects several theoretical processes occurring simultaneously: students are transitioning to Alexander’s (2003) competence stage of domain learning, developing what Hidi and Renninger (2006) term well-developed individual interest and beginning to receive the insider knowledge that Subotnik et al. (2023) identify as crucial for talent development. Specific history courses in college emerged as one of the most influential factors in our survey. One participant recounted a transformative moment:

I was becoming more aware of current events at a moment that we were kind of debating Afghanistan and the Iraq war … there was a moment in my US History Survey when one of the military wives stood up in the class and was like ‘what the hell? Why don’t you all care?’.

This experience helped the participant ‘understand that I could use history as a way to sort of understand the world around me’. In contrast, another historian’s path was more circuitous: ‘I gravitated towards lecture courses. I liked the courses where you could just sit there and have somebody who knew how to talk tell a really good story’, reflecting how personal learning preferences shaped educational choices.

Graduate school emerges as the peak of historical curiosity development, with professional mentors having the most significant impact (50 references, 30.67%). Graduate school represents the full realisation of the TDMM’s advanced internships, where domain-specific expertise combines with psychosocial skill development through intensive mentorship. The insider knowledge transmission described by participants – learning ‘not just how to conduct research, but how to be a professional historian’ – exemplifies Subotnik et al.’s (2021, 2023) findings about how critical professional information is transmitted through mentoring relationships. This stage is characterised by deep engagement with specialised areas of history and the beginning of professional networking. One participant described studying with an oral historian in France and then exploring narrative in folklore, experiences that shaped their approach to public history. Another mentioned working with influential scholar John Bodnar at Indiana University, highlighting the importance of academic mentorship.

It is important to mention some of the negative experiences respondents noted during their college careers as well. For those who lacked mentors, they described a ‘trial by fire’ approach to college where they struggled without guidance. For others, there was a lack of diversity represented by their professors, their mentors or the content covered in their courses. This could contribute to students feeling like outsiders to the history profession before they truly begin to pursue it. Another challenging experience some respondents noted was when they started college with a different major and struggled in their courses, sometimes feeling alienated. For some who felt a lack of belonging in other disciplines, history provided comfort and felt like a good fit, so these students decided to change their majors to history.

However, we cannot overly attribute positive history talent development experiences to the graduate school stage. Some respondents noted that graduate school provided inadequate career preparation, with a number of those who responded to the survey and participated in the focus group sharing that they still felt unprepared for their careers upon completing graduate school. Furthermore, privilege played an important role in graduate school experiences. Preparation for the history profession often requires students to rely on student loans, complete unpaid or low-paying internships or volunteer opportunities and accept low-paying jobs upon graduation. These issues are present in undergraduate studies but become amplified at the graduate school level when students tailor their activities to training for the history professions.

Early career

As individuals transition into their early careers, the influence shifts towards a combination of informal mentors (21 references, 12.88%) and peer mentoring (19 references, 11.66%). This stage represents what the TDMM describes as the transition towards creative productivity, where individuals begin contributing to the field while continuing to receive specialised guidance. The shift towards peer mentoring reflects the collaborative nature of professional development in the advanced stages of talent development. This stage is marked by the application of historical knowledge in professional settings and the beginning of giving back to the field. A participant shared how Bob Weible at the National Park Service became a remarkable mentor, helping them secure their first professional jobs and guiding them through the politics of public history. Another described a 10-year project bringing graduate students from around the state to create more diverse interpretations of the past at historic sites, illustrating how early career historians often become mentors themselves.

Focus group participants expressed diverse concerns about the field, with one historian directly stating: ‘I’m afraid for the profession. I’m afraid for higher education in general, but I am afraid for the profession of history.’ This participant described witnessing ‘them just dismantle the history programmes’ and observed ‘a desire to not teach real history’. Another perspective balanced this concern with optimism, noting: ‘Don’t you love the fact that we make them so mad? I mean, doesn’t it show you that there is power in what we’re doing?’ This historian found validation in resistance to historical work, suggesting ‘we’re doing it right’ when historical research triggers pushback. A third view emphasised hope in the next generation: ‘We are producing … what I’ve seen come out in our programme better than what I was. I think that’s the hope’, indicating optimism about the calibre of emerging historians. These contrasting perspectives reveal the complex emotional landscape being navigated by historians in the current political and economic climate.

Research objective 2: uncovering critical learning experiences that lead to history careers

Survey results showcase a complex interplay of educational experiences and personal engagement. Based on participants’ Likert-scale ratings (1 = Not influential to 5 = Extremely influential), we identified the relative importance of different developmental experiences. These findings illuminate how the various mechanisms described in our integrated theoretical framework operate across developmental stages, with different factors becoming prominent as individuals progress through the TDMM’s stages from potential recognition to creative productivity. The following findings present both the quantitative ratings and qualitative explanations of why these experiences were impactful for participants. As shown in Table 4, specific history courses in college or graduate school emerged as the most influential factor, underscoring the critical role of higher education in cultivating long-term interest in the discipline. This finding was closely followed by internships or work experiences in history-related fields, highlighting the significance of practical, hands-on engagement with historical work. The high rating of practical experiences reflects what Alexander’s MDL describes as the importance of moving beyond acclimatisation to active competence building, while also providing the insider knowledge that Subotnik et al. (2023) emphasise as crucial for talent development.

The findings also highlight the importance of independent, learner-initiated activities, with independent reading of historical books or articles ranking highly. This finding, coupled with the moderate influence of exposure to historical documentaries or media, suggests that personal initiative in exploring historical content plays a crucial role in career decision-making. Interestingly, while engaging history teachers and encouragement from family or friends both showed moderate influence, participation in history clubs or organisations was found to be the least influential factor in the survey. However, the focus group discussions revealed that for some individuals, these extracurricular activities can be significantly impactful, suggesting a more nuanced view of their importance.

The open-ended responses and focus group discussions revealed a range of career motivations and inspirational experiences that complement and expand upon the quantitative findings. Focus group participants revealed significantly different motivations for pursuing history as a career. One participant described an almost accidental path: ‘I didn’t have a major in college until the very end … I found myself just taking the classes that I liked the most without really thinking about what would ultimately be a major.’ This contrasts with another historian who recalled a deliberate shift: ‘I went to college wanting to be a computer scientist … [but] happened to be taking US History surveys that semester with really amazing teachers’, highlighting how exposure to engaging instruction redirected career trajectories. A third participant described a moment of vocational clarity: ‘I started teaching and I called my dad. I said I found my calling … getting to explain things and getting them to ask questions … I was loving it.’ These varied pathways demonstrate the diverse routes individuals take to the history profession.

Both survey and focus group participants emphasised the importance of specific history courses in college or graduate school. However, the relationship between course exposure and career interest likely involves bidirectional causality: while engaging courses may spark or deepen professional interest, students with existing historical curiosity may be more likely to select advanced courses and engage deeply with course material. Focus group participants provided detailed examples of transformative classes, though it remains unclear whether these courses created interest or provided a context for pre-existing interest to flourish. One participant described their experience with historiography: ‘I unknowingly my freshman year had signed up for the senior historiography course … But that course actually was really transformative for me because it showed me how history can change in our interpretation and ebb and flow, and this is tied to politics.’ Another participant recalled their first college history class as a pivotal moment: ‘The first class that I took at the community college was history class because it’s what I loved. And I kind of thought to myself, well, this guy is here on campus three days a week from like 9 to 3. How do I do that job?’

The focus group participants strongly support the existing data on the importance of internships and work experiences. They offer specific examples, such as handling historical documents or artefacts, which provided tangible connections to the past and inspired deeper engagement with history. One participant vividly described this experience: ‘I remember sitting down one day and going through folders and here’s a letter from Jackie Robinson to Richard Nixon and just having to sit down and thinking, wow, I get to hold this, they’re trusting me to handle this and to sort of find some sort of meaning with that.’ Another participant explained how archival work influenced their understanding: ‘I sort of got into my head very early on that if you really wanna do history right, you have to go to the sources. You’re not just staring at all from a classroom, from the textbook. You have to find, you have to go to the archives.’

While the survey data showed moderate influence from engaging teachers, the focus groups emphasised their importance more strongly, particularly in high school and college. Passionate educators were often credited with inspiring students to pursue history as a career. As one participant shared: ‘Some of the professors said, hey, you’re good at this. Why don’t you think about going to graduate school?’ Another recalled a pivotal conversation with a mentor: ‘He was sitting there talking with him and he was so open to talking and such a great mentor. And he said, what do you want to do? And I said, well, I don’t really know. And he said, well, think of graduate school and [it] never even occurred to me.’

The focus group participants highlighted the influence of media such as the History Channel and historical documentaries, which aligns with the moderate influence of historical documentaries or media in the survey data. These sources often sparked initial interest or provided accessible entry points into historical topics. One participant candidly admitted: ‘I grew up in a small working-class community in rural Pennsylvania and I guess my sort of passion for history started with the History Channel. Ironically, now [I] spend my time critiquing [it].’ Another shared how documentaries opened new worlds: ‘When I got enthralled with something, was sitting as a little kid by myself, watching these documentaries and things. It took me to see worlds that I never got to see otherwise.’ For some, media filled gaps left by formal education: ‘I remember watching the Ken Burns series on the Civil War and really just being impressed by that documentary and interested in the Civil War because of it.’

The focus group participants placed more emphasis on family influences, particularly parents and grandparents, which was not as prominent in the initial survey findings. Family members often introduced historical concepts through storytelling, genealogy or shared experiences at historical sites. One participant explained: ‘It really started with my dad who was a high school world history teacher and spending time reading with him every night … We’d read historical fiction, and I think that sparked my curiosity.’ Another recalled: ‘I remember coming here to the Japanese American National Museum with my dad, and we were looking at immigration records … when my great grandparents immigrated to the US and that really made history really relevant to me.’ Family travels were also significant: ‘I think the most impactful time that I had with history in my K through 12 years was with my parents. We would mainly just go on trips across the American Southwest and they were very outdoorsy people.’

The focus group participants introduced the importance of local historians and community history, an aspect not explicitly mentioned in the initial findings. These connections often provided personalised, relatable introductions to historical study. One participant remembered:

I can distinctly remember in the fourth grade we had like some elective option thing and everybody did art or something. And I signed up for the elective where a local historian came in and he brought in his slide reel projector. And then showed a bunch of local history and seeing like an old building and then give the back story. And like I recognise that building, it also made history like really tangible.

The personal connection to local history was particularly powerful:

He made it experiential – went around the room like, 'Oh, you're short and Italian, you're in the coal mine. You're doing this …' He explained what it would have been like to be an immigrant arriving in 1920, in that town, where we would have been funnelled – what our options may have been. And that stuck with me my entire life.

Many participants in the survey and focus groups cited a curiosity about how past events shaped the present, a desire to understand family or cultural heritage, and an interest in untold or underrepresented historical narratives. These motivations often translated into a passion for research, writing and storytelling – core components of historical practice.

Focus group participants emphasised the role of digital and public history in engaging broader audiences and adapting to new technologies. This highlights the evolving nature of the field and its ability to remain relevant in the digital age. Innovative approaches were described:

Recently, our makerspace worked with me and we created an augmented reality tour of the university campus, which we programmed such a way that if you take your phone out, pull up a programme and you point it at an old building on campus, it’ll show you like historical photos, talk about the building’s history over time.

Others mentioned creative outreach strategies: ‘I’m currently working on a prototype programme that’s going to use the English curriculum to send students out and conduct oral histories with their community … they’re gonna go out, collect oral histories, get engaged with local history, come back, learn about art, a little bit about archiving.’

Participants expressed a desire for intellectually engaging and meaningful careers, with many seeing history as a way to address social justice issues or preserve and interpret the past. Interest in teaching history at various levels, working in museums, archives or public history, and applying historical skills to diverse fields were common themes, reflecting the broad appeal and applicability of historical study.

The focus groups also revealed some concerns about the future of the history profession, including political pressures and job prospects. Some participants expressed significant concern: ‘My colleagues don’t wanna go into the classroom. We feel it’s a danger time to go to work. Like every day we could do something that’s gonna cost us a job. And that’s not a conducive environment.’ Others voiced frustration with institutional responses: ‘We’re not gonna fight the politicians. We’re not even gonna make a struggle. We’re just gonna fold instantly because we don’t wanna be yelled at or scolded or have our miniscule state budget cut.’ One participant suggested a broader societal shift was needed: ‘I think it’s gonna take some sort of mass mobilisation effort of people recalibrating what it means to be human at a societal level in the United States, and it’s gonna require empathy.’

However, many participants emphasised the development of transferable skills through historical study, such as critical thinking and research abilities, which they saw as valuable in various career paths. As one participant articulated: ‘It’s really important to note to our students that history is a skills-based discipline.’ Another explained: ‘Working in history is so much more than just chronological development or names and places. It’s being able to find tools to conduct research. It’s critical information literacy … so many of those skills are transferable to other aspects of life.’ Participants emphasised the practical value of these skills: ‘I work in state government and realised like, oh, I can sort of analyse this. I can write an email that conveys my argument and gets things done.’

In conclusion, the combined quantitative and qualitative data paint a rich picture of the inspirational experiences and people that inspire early interest in history. While formal education and practical experiences remain crucial, the findings underscore the importance of personal engagement, mentorship, diverse exposure to historical content and family influences in nurturing a lasting interest in the field. The results suggest that fostering historical curiosity requires a multifaceted approach, combining structured educational experiences with opportunities for self-directed exploration and real-world application of historical skills. This interest often develops as a lifelong passion, shaped by various influences and experiences throughout an individual’s educational and professional journey.