Reconceptualizing momentary engagement through the lens of conceptual change learning

In recent years, there has been a strong call for more fine-grained analyses of student engagement to better capture its nature as a situated, momentary phenomenon. This special issue aims to promote cross-disciplinary discussions about the complex processes involved in students’ momentary engagement and learning situated in classroom contexts. Momentary engagement is conceptualized as students’ involvement with learning activities over short time intervals. We begin by presenting definitional, conceptual, and methodological reflections on the construct of momentary engagement, highlighting how moment-to-moment analyses can deepen our understanding of how engagement unfolds in complex, dynamic learning environments. Next, we discuss the need for a holistic and multidisciplinary perspective to foster an integrative understanding of contexts and conditions under which students engage in academic tasks. Finally, we provide a brief overview of the papers in this special issue, emphasising their diverse methodological approaches to capturing students’ momentary engagement and summarizing their main results that offer practical insights on supporting engagement. Each contribution reflects the efforts of a multidisciplinary team who have studied students’ momentary engagement and learning across various contexts, combining insights and identifying cross-disciplinary synergies in theory and method. The authors integrate perspectives from various fields of research, including motivation, emotion, self-regulation, engagement, social interaction and conceptual change. Their research draws on student samples from the United States, Finland, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.

In this chapter we raise two important issues regarding the metacognitive self-regulation of learning with technologies: First, adaptation to the external context is a core component of self-regulated learning. Empirical research regarding task complexity and text complexity – two exemplary external conditions – shows that learners systematically adapt their whole self-regulated learning process within a hypermedia learning environment to these contextual conditions. Therefore, careful construction and evaluation of learning tasks and learning content is warranted. In this context communicating and teaching the demands of complex learning scenarios deserves special attention. Second, learner characteristics play an important role in self-regulated learning and adaptation. Empirical research regarding epistemic beliefs – one exemplary learner characteristic – shows that learners with absolutistic beliefs will plan and execute different learning processes than those with sophisticated beliefs; these differences are especially pronounced under conditions of high complexity. Given the general superiority of the learning and adaptation processes of more sophisticated learners such beliefs should be a learning goal of their own and should be explicitly addressed in learning scenarios.KeywordsTask ComplexityLearning ContentEpistemic BeliefText ComplexityMetacognitive AwarenessThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

The impact of Augmented Reality (AR)-based science learning on cognitive development has been established, but the effect of AR on the improvement of students’ academic performance remains inconclusive. Additionally, while epistemic beliefs as a significant determinant on student learning outcomes is well-documented, there is little research in AR-supported science learning exploring the effectiveness of AR activities on students’ epistemic beliefs. This mixed-methods study investigates the relationship between students’ engagement in an AR-based inquiry learning environment and their epistemic beliefs. It aims to examine if students’ engagement in AR activities has an impact on their epistemic beliefs and academic performance, as well as which aspects of students’ epistemic beliefs may be affected by the designed activities. 159 fifth-grade students participated in the AR activities for two months. The findings revealed that students’ academic performance improved significantly, evidenced in the pre- and post-tests. While students’ perceived engagement did not significantly affect their academic performance, students’ perceived engagement in the activities did influence their epistemic beliefs, particularly in the dimension of justification of knowledge in science. The study identified features of learners’ interactions in the AR learning environment and these findings provide insights into potential areas for improvement in AR-based science learning.

This study investigates whether university students’ epistemic beliefs and prior knowledge about controversial socioscientific issues (SSIs) can predict the different types of arguments that students construct. Two hundred forty‐three university students were asked to construct different types of supportive arguments—social, ethical, economic, scientific, ecological—as well as counterarguments and rebuttals after they had read a scenario on a SSI. Participants’ epistemic beliefs and prior knowledge were assessed separately. Results showed that students’ epistemic beliefs and prior knowledge predicted the quantity, quality, and diversity of the different types of arguments the students constructed. In particular, students who held sophisticated epistemic beliefs about the structure of knowledge and exhibited relativelymore robustprior knowledge scores, produced arguments of greater quantity, better quality, and higher diversity than students with less sophisticated epistemic beliefs and low prior knowledge scores. Educational implications are discussed.

The present study examines whether university Education students’ prior knowledge regarding controversial socio-scientific issues (SSIs), epistemic beliefs and socio-scientific topic context can predict the types of arguments about SSIs that students construct, by single persons in personal reasoning. University Education students (elementary or early childhood Education majors) were asked to construct different types of supportive arguments – social, scientific, ethical, economic, ecological – as well as counterarguments and rebuttals after they had read a topic scenario on a health SSI. We used three different health SSI topics to investigate whether the context of the scenarios has an effect on students’ ability to construct different types of arguments. Students’ prior knowledge on the SSI topic and epistemic beliefs were assessed separately. Results showed that students’ prior knowledge and epistemic beliefs predicted the diversity of arguments that students constructed. In particular, students who exhibited relatively high prior knowledge scores and held sophisticated epistemic beliefs about the structure of knowledge, produced more arguments of different types. The context of individual scenarios of health SSIs does not demonstrate significant predictive power for the diversity of arguments by single persons in personal reasoning. Educational implications are discussed.

This paper reports the results of a qualitative study on the process of learning complex concepts in chemistry by four students as they worked with FLiPS (Flexible Learning in the Periodic System), a cognitive flexibility multi-media hypertext for learning about the periodic system of elements. A wide range of probes (think-alouds; navigation logs; observational notes, interviews; pre- and post-tests; epistemic beliefs survey; and background questionnaire) produced a rich data set for analysis. This data was analyzed to construct rich narrative case- and cross-case narratives of the participants' process of working and learning in this complex hypertext environment. This multi-level analysis offers insight both into the fine-grained process of use as well as the larger issues of the pedagogical significance of FLiPS. Our analysis reveals a complex relationship between epistemic beliefs, student motivation, prior knowledge, and process of learning from hypertext. We offer implications for future research, design and the application of pedagogical hypertexts.

This review examines the literature on teacher epistemic cognition, epistemic beliefs, and calibration to consider the relation between these constructs and instruction that emerged from empirical studies. In considering how this body of literature can enhance understanding of how students become masters of their learning processes, we will briefly review how different theoretical frameworks have conceptualized the relation between epistemic cognition, epistemic beliefs, calibration and metacognition, self-regulation, and self-regulated learning. Implications for research include a more nuanced conceptualization of epistemic beliefs and a theoretical integration of these constructs. Implications for practice regard the reciprocal relations between teachers’ knowledge, experience, epistemic cognition, epistemic beliefs, and calibration and their effects on pedagogical practices. The role of teachers’ education and professional development is discussed.

BackgroundWe investigate learner characteristics and learning processes in two instructional designs with preparatory activities prior to instruction: Productive Failure (PF) and Vicarious Failure (VF). The aim is to develop a first theoretical understanding of PF and VF learners that can inform directions for the design of adaptive support. MethodsBased on an experimental study with 110 secondary school students in mathematics, we examine the effect of students’ learner characteristics in PF (students generating own solution attempts) and VF (students studying these attempts). We assess the learning processes based on think-aloud data from 15 PF-VF-model-observer-pairs, analyzing frequencies and sequences of cognitive processes, using the HeuristicsMiner algorithm. ResultsMathematical ability was related to PF and VF students' learning, prior knowledge and mathematical self-concept to their learning processes. While both groups showed large overlaps in the frequencies and sequences of learning processes, VF students displayed a more analytical and PF students a more solution-oriented approach to the task. Metacognitive planning and evaluation behavior was relevant for VF students’ learning, depending on prior knowledge and ability. For PF students, it depended on mathematical self-concept. ConclusionsPF and VF students’ learning as well as frequencies and sequences of their learning processes relates to cognitive and affective learner characteristics. Metacognitive planning and evaluation behavior may require adaptive guidance specifically for learners with low mathematical self-concept in PF or prior knowledge and ability in VF.

Users benefit most from computer-based learning environments (CBLEs) when they are adept at self-regulated learning (SRL). Learner characteristics, such as epistemic beliefs, influence SRL processing. Therefore, research into learning with CBLEs must account for interactions between epistemic beliefs and SRL. In this article we integrate epistemic belief frameworks and models of SRL, and we argue that both phenomena should be modeled as a dynamic series of events. Such modeling allows for an examination of how various epistemic beliefs may be activated and deactivated through the process of self-regulation. We also show how CBLEs can be used to measure epistemic beliefs in novel ways and study how epistemic beliefs and SRL interact. Finally, we identify areas for future research and educational implications.

Epistemic beliefs are individual beliefs about knowledge and knowledge acquisition. Empirical studies indicate that learners’ epistemic beliefs influence their learning processes and success (e.g. motivation, text comprehension, learning strategy selection, grades). Teachers and trainers can support their apprentices in developing preferable epistemic beliefs to facilitate learning. To do this, instructors need information on learners’ current beliefs for lesson planning and monitoring epistemic beliefs development. The following paper reports the validation of a tool for generating this kind of information: the Instrument for Measuring Epistemic Beliefs in Marketing. The instrument validation is based on three studies (Study I: 225 university trained business administration students; Study II: 531 vocationally trained retailers/wholesalers; Study III: 179 vocationally trained bank assistants). It reveals high reliabilities (α values about .700), stable factor structures, and incremental validity in comparison to general epistemic beliefs. The new questionnaire is able to predict grades in marketing and can be used to diagnose apprentices’ epistemic beliefs for adjusting instruction to learners’ preconditions. Findings based on the new instrument indicate that apprentices show partly unfavourable epistemic beliefs. As a result, supporting learners in developing preferable beliefs provides an opportunity to increase their learning success.

This study investigated pre-service teachers’ epistemic beliefs about the Internet using the Inventory of Internet-Based Epistemic Beliefs (IBEB). Also examined were their belief profiles to delineate the effect of IBEB on pre-service teachers’ engagement in online reading activities and intention for ICT integration for constructivist learning activities. Participants were 474 teacher education students in Taiwan. Results revealed the four hypothesised constructs – structure, uncertainty, source, and justification for Internet knowledge – with good validity and reliability. Four epistemic belief groups were derived based on these constructs; and they exhibited differential effects on the validating variables. Cluster 1 was characterised by four positive epistemic beliefs (the positive beliefs), Cluster 2 by four negative epistemic beliefs (the negative beliefs), Cluster 3 by modest scores of the epistemic beliefs (the modest beliefs), and Cluster 4 by positive uncertainty and justification scores as well as negative structure and source scores (the high justification and uncertainty). Findings suggest that intervention targeting pre-service teachers in the negative beliefs and the modest beliefs may be necessary to foster positive epistemic beliefs for better constructivist learning in the online environment.

Hypermedia learning environments (HLE) unevenly present new challenges and opportunities to learning processes and outcomes depending on learner characteristics and instructional supports. In this experimental study, we examined how one such HLE—MetaTutor, an intelligent, multi-agent tutoring system designed to scaffold cognitive and metacognitive self-regulated learning (SRL) processes—interacts with learner’s prior domain knowledge to affect their note-taking activities and subsequent learning outcomes. Sixty (N = 60) college students studied with MetaTutor for 120 min and took notes on hypermedia content of the human circulatory system. Log-files and screen recordings of learner-system interactions were used to analyze notes for several quantitative and qualitative variables. Results show that most note-taking was a verbatim copy of instructional content, which negatively related to the post-test measure of learning. There was an interaction between prior knowledge and pedagogical agent scaffolding, such that low prior knowledge students took a greater quantity of notes compared to their high prior knowledge counterparts, but only in the absence of MetaTutor SRL scaffolding; when agent SRL scaffolding was present, the note-taking activities of low prior knowledge students were statistically equivalent to the number of notes taken by their high prior knowledge counterparts. Theoretical and instructional design implications are discussed.

Epistemic beliefs are individuals’ beliefs about knowledge and knowing. Modelling them is currently based on two central assumptions. First, epistemic beliefs are conceptualized as a multi-level construct, i.e. they exist on a general, academic, domain-specific and/or topic-specific level. Second, research assumes that their more concrete levels predict learning processes and outcomes more strongly than their more general levels. However, studies directly investigating these assumptions are still missing. 975 prospective retailers, wholesalers, bank assistants, and industrial assistants reported their grades and learning motivation in accounting and marketing as well as their epistemic beliefs in an effort to prove both assumptions within the context of Vocational Education and Training. Second-order confirmatory factor analysis confirms the multi-level conceptualization of epistemic beliefs. The findings here indicate a superiority of domain- and topic-specific epistemic beliefs compared to general epistemic beliefs for predicting motivation and achievement in marketing and accounting. The study concludes that domainand topic-specific epistemic beliefs explain different facets of learning phenomena. In addition, further research should concentrate more on both the domain- and topic-specific levels.

Online offerings of abstract engineering courses such as thermodynamics provide a medium to present course material using pedagogy that employs problem-based learning (PBL). This shift requires a student-centered approach to course design and delivery that addresses several key elements in the educational setting, including students’ self-efficacy as it relates to problem-solving and students’ epistemic beliefs as they relate to interacting with peers, instructors, and instruction. This paper reports results from a mixed-method study that collected data useful in design of an online course focused on teaching problem solving skills among students. The data were collected through qualitative and quantitative methods used to determine how students approach problem solving, the role of instructor in facilitating problem solving, and the role of peers and students’ use of technology as it relates to accomplishing course work related to problem solving. Results reveal that students are confident in their problem-solving skills but rely primarily on the instructor to show them how to solve problems. Analysis and discussion focus on how to change the manner in which the content of the course is designed and presented to improve students’ self-efficacy in problem solving and students’ epistemic beliefs through active engagement with materials and collaboration with peers and instructor.

The present study examines individuals’ thinking during and after reading controversial historical accounts and the possible contribution of epistemic beliefs, emotions, and prior-knowledge in this context. Young adults (n = 39) were asked to read two accounts about a recent war in their country, an own-side account – from a historian of their ethnic group – and an other-side account – from a historian from the adversary ethnic group. Participants were asked to think-aloud and report their emotions during reading. After reading, participants were asked to write a summary. Results showed that participants exhibited my-side bias during reading and writing, while there were also interesting individual differences in epistemic beliefs and prior knowledge. Participants with evaluativist epistemic beliefs were less likely to show my-side bias in the writing task. Epistemic beliefs, along with prior knowledge and the emotion of anger, predicted also low-epistemic processing during reading of other-side text. The paper concludes with a discussion of the educational implications in promoting critical thinking about controversial issues in history.