This research seeks to explore Korean 4th and 5th graders' conception of history and historical account. For this research, thirty six 4th and 5th graders in the Incheon Metropolitan City and the Gyeong gi province area were interviewed and their answers were analyzed.
As a result, this research finds that many of the research participants tend to perceive that history is a story of great individuals in the past. Some of the participants narrate history as a story of great individuals while defining that history is about peoples' life and the tools used by the past people. Most of the participants were not able to distinguish 'the past' from 'history.' They have few ideas about what historians do or how historical accounts are constructed. Rather they believe that today people are able to know about the past event exactly as it happened through the documents remained and oral transmission from generation to generation. Therefore this research suggests that the elementary history textbook be developed to help students have an idea about history as an interpretive discipline.