Epistemic Cognition Research Articles

Epistemic Cognition in Medicine: A Review of Literature and Implications for Medical Educators

ObjectiveAs medical educators increasingly emphasize integration of disciplines, culturally relevant care, and evidence‐based medicine, learners must draw upon diverse ways of knowing and learning. Because learners' theories of knowledge and knowing influence how they reason and make meaning, it is important to consider how these theories, described as epistemic cognition, relate to medical education and practice. The purpose of this presentation is to present a review of the research literature on epistemic cognition in medicine and discuss implications for health science and medical educators.MethodsFollowing recommendations for systematic review described by Cook and West (2012), we conducted database searches using keywords related to epistemic cognition and medical education. Requirements for selection included empirical studies with a central focus on epistemic cognition and participant samples including medical students or physicians. Independent thematic analysis and consensus procedures were used to identify major findings about epistemic cognition in medicine and implications for research and medical education. Ongoing updates to the literature within our search parameters will be incorporated in the presentation.ResultsThemes from the findings of selected studies included relatively simple epistemological positions of medical learners, increasing epistemological sophistication with clinical experience, and relationships between epistemic cognition and the context of medical education and practice. Other common themes included patterns in epistemic orientations to clinical practice and learners' and physicians' reactions to ambiguity and uncertainty. Many studies identified the need for new instruments and methodologies to study epistemic cognition in medicine and its relationship to clinical outcomes. Also, relationships between epistemological positions and humanistic patient care, as well as influences of medical education practices were identified as important areas for future study.ConclusionsThe concept of epistemic cognition is presented and applied in different ways in the medical research literature. Advancing theoretical frameworks and developing new methodological approaches to examine epistemic cognition are important next steps. Additionally, future research should examine the relationship between the contexts of medical learning and practice and epistemic cognition. For example, do teaching and assessment in medical education promote conceptions of certainty and concreteness of medical knowledge? If so, how can medical educators from various disciplines promote more beneficial epistemic positions? Finally, we will discuss implications of epistemic cognition for development of humanistic orientations to medical care.Support or Funding InformationArnold P. Gold Foundation

Socialising Epistemic Cognition

We draw on recent accounts of social epistemology to present a novel account of epistemic cognition that is ‘socialised’. In developing this account we foreground the: normative and pragmatic nature of knowledge claims; functional role that ‘to know’ plays when agents say they ‘know x’; the social context in which such claims occur at a macro level, including disciplinary and cultural context; and the communicative context in which such claims occur, the ways in which individuals and small groups express and construct (or co-construct) their knowledge claims. We frame prior research in terms of this new approach to provide an exemplification of its application. Practical implications for research and learning contexts are highlighted, suggesting a re-focussing of analysis on the collective level, and the ways knowledge-standards emerge from group-activity, as a communicative property of that activity.

Formal and Informal Learning and First-Year Psychology Students' Development of Scientific Thinking: A Two-Wave Panel Study.

Scientific thinking is a predicate for scientific inquiry, and thus important to develop early in psychology students as potential future researchers. The present research is aimed at fathoming the contributions of formal and informal learning experiences to psychology students’ development of scientific thinking during their 1st-year of study. We hypothesize that informal experiences are relevant beyond formal experiences. First-year psychology student cohorts from various European countries will be assessed at the beginning and again at the end of the second semester. Assessments of scientific thinking will include scientific reasoning skills, the understanding of basic statistics concepts, and epistemic cognition. Formal learning experiences will include engagement in academic activities which are guided by university authorities. Informal learning experiences will include non-compulsory, self-guided learning experiences. Formal and informal experiences will be assessed with a newly developed survey. As dispositional predictors, students’ need for cognition and self-efficacy in psychological science will be assessed. In a structural equation model, students’ learning experiences and personal dispositions will be examined as predictors of their development of scientific thinking. Commonalities and differences in predictive weights across universities will be tested. The project is aimed at contributing information for designing university environments to optimize the development of students’ scientific thinking.

Towards a framework for co-creating Open Scholarship

A recent edition of ALT-J made a call for papers that looked at ‘theoretical approaches in digitally mediated environments’. A key part of this call was to use the Boyer Model of Scholarship as a frame of reference. The authors felt that there were limitations to this model which could be addressed in light of the recent moves to develop Open Scholarship. Our concern with Boyer is that he suggests a separation between researchers, who ‘build new knowledge through traditional research’ and teachers who ‘study teaching models and practices to achieve optimal learning’. Boyer identifies four ‘Types’ of Scholarship, those of Discovery, Integration, Application and Teaching (DIAT), but places the responsibility for ‘creative work in established field’, with the traditional researcher role (Discovery). Furthermore this model implies a linear flow concerning how new knowledge becomes a part of teaching, implying that the teaching is mostly instructional, with a limited view of how new and emerging pedagogies might be utilised. The Learner-Generated Contexts Research Group has been concerned to develop a co-creation approach to learning and find this separation curious. We argue that using the Pedagogy, Andragogy, Heutagogy (PAH) Continuum enables more flexible approaches, through a mix of PAH, allowing for a wide range of technology uses, which also changes the relationship to research. We look at how we might both apply a co-creation approach to Boyer’s model, inspired by the Open Scholar movement, and also make DIAT more iterative and less discrete. Consequently we have both extended Boyer’s DIAT system to include Co-creating as an additional type and changed some ‘measures of performance’ to enable an iterative process of scholarship to emerge which also involves learners. We also examine how network effects ‘enable generative network effects to occur’ on scholarship and how applying Epistemic Cognition to evolving subject frameworks might enable the co-creation of research agendas. The co-creation model of Open Scholarship is presented in a table designed to simulate debate on this subject. Keywords: open scholar; scholarship; research; co-creation; contexts; teaching; PAH Continuum; epistemic cognition; open education resources; OER; networked learning

Book Review: Epistemic Cognition and Development: The Psychology of Justification and Truth

Although relatively unpopular among Indonesian scholars, the study of epistemic cognition has emerged as a major area of research at the intersection of psychology and education. A number of edited books and special editions in respected journals have been dedicated to various issues related to epistemic cognition. However, David Moshman’s “Epistemic Cognition and Development” (henceforth, ECD) is the first textbook which provides a comprehensive introduction to theories and research on epistemic cognition. With this book, Moshman deserves much credit for providing not only valuable insights on a number of key conceptual issues, but also situating those insights within the broader picture of cognitive and developmental theories.

Epistemic cognition in medical education: a literature review.

ObjectiveTo review the research literature on epistemic cognition in medical education.MethodsWe conducted database searches using keywords related to epistemic cognition and medical education or practice. In duplicate, authors selected and reviewed empirical studies with a central focus on epistemic cognition and participant samples including medical students or physicians. Independent thematic analysis and consensus procedures were used to identify major findings about epistemic cognition and implications for research and medical education. ResultsTwenty-seven articles were selected. Themes from the findings of selected studies included developmental frameworks of epistemic cognition revealing simple epistemological positions of medical learners, increasing epistemological sophistication with experience, relationships between epistemic cognition and context, patterns in epistemic orientations to clinical practice, and reactions to ambiguity and uncertainty. Many studies identified the need for new instruments and methodologies to study epistemic cognition in medical education settings and its relationship to clinical outcomes. Relationships between epistemological beliefs and humanistic patient care and influences of medical education practices were commonly cited implications for medical education. ConclusionsEpistemic cognition is conceptualized and operationalized in a variety of ways in the medical research literature. Advancing theoretical frameworks and developing new methodological approaches to examine epistemic cognition are important areas for future research. Also, examination of the relationship between the contexts of medical learning and practice and epistemic cognition has potential for improving medical education. This work also establishes a need for further investigation into the implications of epistemic cognition for humanistic orientations and ultimately for patient care.

From Theory of Mind to Epistemic Cognition. A Lifespan perspective

Although a sizeable body of research now exists in epistemic cognition, it tends to stand apart to other aspects of cognition and cognitive development. Here it is proposed situating epistemic cognition in a context of its roots and development as a dimension of cognitive development more generally. The present paper draws a strong continuous link between the earliest understanding of other minds, examined under the Theory of Mind, and the tasks that confront adults throughout the lifespan – that of interpreting evidence and coordinating it with what they already take to be true. The primary focus is the How question of knowledge change. To gain insight into this question, it is proposed focusing on epistemic activity in action. It is suggested here that the standards for knowledge formation and revision, which are closely connected with epistemic understanding of theory-evidence coordination, change developmentally. Another major change, proposed, is that the process increasingly comes under conscious control.

Designing and Analysing STEM Studios for preservice teacher education

There is a need for approaches to understand the teaching and learning of STEM and STEAM in schools in order to prepare preservice teachers for innovative classroom practice. In this paper we use a combined design approach to examine the activity of school students, preservice teachers and graduate STEAM students in two STEM Studios at a University in Queensland. We present our revised conceptual model based on earlier iterations as part of an OLT funded project. Multimodal learning analytics approaches will be applied in order to understand the integration of knowledge processes, epistemic cognition, collaboration and tool use.

Learning to integrate divergent information sources: the interplay of epistemic cognition and epistemic metacognition

Learning to integrate multiple information sources is vital for advancing learners’ digital literacy. Previous studies have found that learners’ epistemic metacognitive knowledge about the nature of knowledge and knowing is related to their strategic integration performance. The purpose of this study was to understand how these relations come into play as students learn to integrate divergent information sources. To do so, we examined the contribution of scaffolds addressing the epistemic strategy of integration and epistemic metastrategic knowledge about this strategy. Participants were 99 high-achieving Arab Israeli ninth graders. All participants engaged in writing arguments based on divergent information sources. Students in the control condition received no scaffolds; students in the strategic condition received a strategic scaffold; and students in the metastrategic condition received both strategic and metastrategic scaffolds. Integration performance, epistemic metastrategic knowledge about integration, and absolutist, multiplist, and evaluativist epistemic perspectives were measured before, immediately after, and one month after the intervention. At pre-test, both epistemic metastrategic knowledge about integration and evaluativism were positive predictors of integration performance. The strategic scaffold led to a significant increase in integration performance and epistemic metastrategic knowledge. Adding the metastrategic scaffold led to greater improvement in epistemic metastrategic knowledge, but did not result in additional gains in strategic performance. An immediate decrease in absolutism occurred among all participants but was not sustained over time. A decrease in multiplism occurred only in the experimental groups and was sustained over time. The results suggest that epistemic growth can occur in both bottom-up and top-down directions.

Development and initial validation of the Literature Epistemic Cognition Scale (LECS)

Learning and problem solving in the natural sciences and history is affected by epistemic cognition. Likewise, it has recently been proposed that the same is true for interpreting literature, although there is little empirical research on how individual differences in epistemic cognition for literary reading impact literary interpretation (Lee, Goldman, Levine, & Magliano, 2016). The development of a valid and reliable assessment of epistemic cognition for literature is an important step in examining this question. The present study takes a first study toward such a scale in that it reports the development of a scale that for assessing adolescents' epistemic cognitions for literary reading, the Literature Epistemic Cognition Scale (LECS). Results address the content validity, factorial validity, criterion validity, and reliability of the three constructs assessed on the LECS: relevance of literature to understand people and the human experience; openness of literary works to multiple meanings and interpretations; functionality of multiple readings of literary works for interpretation. The study involved a large sample of middle school students in the U.S. Confirmatory factor analysis validated the three-factor structure of the LECS. Criterion validity was established via correlational analyses between the subscale of the LECS and measures of the speed of acquiring knowledge, liking of reading, and frequency of reading as assessed through additional surveys. The implications of the results and directions for potential future research are discussed.

Public Understanding of Science

The need for public understanding of science is especially critical in today’s society when citizens frequently confront complex, conflicting information on challenging topics. This article presents research on challenges for public understanding of science: In addition to increased scientific literacy (knowledge), people may need to shift epistemic cognition (beliefs about the nature of knowledge) and epistemic trust (beliefs about source credibility) to accept scientific perspectives. The article suggests how educators, media specialists, and scientists who communicate about their work might help address these challenges. Educational implications include (a) teach scientific processes, (b) teach for deeper understanding, (c) promote epistemic cognition, and (d) use instructional scaffolds. Policy recommendations include (a) fund educational research on thinking, (b) emphasize how to think over what to think, (c) support malleable psychological skills and dispositions, (d) avoid presenting “balanced perspectives” when there is scientific consensus, and (e) demand more rigorous teacher preparation standards. All these develop an informed citizenry.

New Directions for Research on Argumentation: Insights from the AIR Framework for Epistemic Cognition

Neue Wege für Forschung über das Argumentieren: Einblicke aus dem AIR-Framework for Epistemic CognitionZusammenfassung. Dieser Kommentar befasst sich mit den vielen unterschiedlichen und interessanten Artikeln des Themenhefts. Zuerst wird überblicksartig eine Zusammenschau der Befunde mit Blick auf neue Erkenntnisse gegeben. Dabei werden Aspekte von Argumentation und Lernen kritisiert, um die Wichtigkeit dieser Erkenntnisse für die weiterführende Forschung in diesem Bereich herauszustellen. Anschließend wird kurz ein neues Bezugssystem für epistemische Kognition beschrieben und als Linse verwendet, um einige Themen der Artikel genauer zu beleuchten. Dies hat das Ziel, neue Denkweisen in Bezug auf Argumentation und das Erlernen und Vermitteln dieser zentralen Praxis zu eröffnen.

Collaborative epistemic discourse in classroom information-seeking tasks

The authors discuss the relationship between information seeking and epistemic beliefs – beliefs about the source, structure, complexity and stability of knowledge – in the context of collaborative information-seeking discourses. They further suggest that both information seeking, and epistemic cognition research agendas, have suffered from a lack of attention to how information seeking as a collaborative activity is mediated by talk between partners – an area they seek to address in this article. A small-scale observational study using sociocultural discourse analysis was conducted with eight 11-year-old pupils who carried out search engine tasks in small groups. Qualitative and quantitative analysis were performed on their discussions using sociocultural discourse analytic techniques. Extracts of the dialogue are reported, informed by concordance analysis and quantitative coding of dialogue duration. The authors find that: (1) discourse which could be characterised as ‘epistemic’ is identifiable in student talk; (2) it is possible to identify talk which is more or less productive; and (3) epistemic talk is associated with positive learning outcomes.

Understanding and Promoting Thinking About Knowledge

Epistemic cognition is the thinking that people do about what and how they know. Education has long been concerned with promoting reflection on knowledge and processes of knowing, but research into epistemic cognition began really in the past half century, with a tremendous expansion in the past 20 years. This review summarizes the broad range of psychological and education research that comprises the study of epistemic cognition, and it identifies various fault lines that currently prevent coherent synthesis of theoretical models and empirical findings. The fault lines include differences in how scholars conceptualize knowledge and cognition, and the contextual nature of epistemic cognition, with consequent differences in accounts of individual development, as well as in research methods. In the coming century, research that can integrate findings among individual, situative, and cultural accounts of cognition may enable the advancement of coherent models of epistemic cognition and its development and support improved educational efforts aimed at such development.

Epistemological orientations and evidence evaluation in undergraduates

Epistemological orientations and evidence evaluation abilities influence processes related to critical thinking and conclusion justification across various reasoning domains. Participants (N=500) were presented with the Justifying Conclusions Inventory (JCI) enabling the identification of epistemological orientation groups. Cluster analysis identified four groups: Absolutists, Multiplists, Evaluativists, and Low Evaluativists. Participants also read research vignettes and responded to Research Evaluation Inventory (REI) questions addressing evidence evaluation processes related to skepticism. REI responses were significantly affected by epistemological orientation group, with Evaluativists demonstrating the most skepticism. Participants with the most education and those who had taken a methodology course also demonstrated greater skepticism. These results suggest the JCI is a defensible assay of global and domain-specific epistemic cognition. In addition, the findings herein elucidate characteristics of a transitional epistemic cognitive state which could be common in undergraduates.

Educating Critical Thinkers

Proliferating information and viewpoints in the 21st century require an educated citizenry with the ability to think critically about complex, controversial issues. Critical thinking requires epistemic cognition: the ability to construct, evaluate, and use knowledge. Epistemic dispositions and beliefs predict many academic outcomes, as well as whether people use their epistemic cognition skills, for example, scrutinizing methods in science and evaluating sources in history. The evidence supporting the importance of epistemic cognition, inside and outside of the classroom, has led to a growing body of intervention research. However, more research can reveal how to best position teachers and students to develop and enact productive epistemic cognition. Promising directions for future research and policy include developing learning environments that promote students’ epistemic cognition and subsequent critical thinking, as well as incorporating this work into educator preparation programs.

Self-regulated learning processes vary as a function of epistemic beliefs and contexts: Mixed method evidence from eye tracking and concurrent and retrospective reports

The objective of the current studies was to investigate how epistemic cognition related to specific phases and components of self-regulated learning and its adaptation to learning conditions of varying quality. In a multi-study, mixed method design, we presented university students with science content that relayed conceptual discrepancies and collected quantitative and qualitative data to study how students responded to discrepancies. In Study 1 (n = 42), we collected eye tracking patterns, study times, and metacognitive ratings and found that participants adapted their behavioral processing as a function of their epistemic cognition and discrepancy type. In Study 2 (n = 20), we collected concurrent think-aloud protocols and retrospective interviews to further explore why discrepancies were noticed (or not) and how they were resolved. Results revealed that prior knowledge and epistemic self-efficacy in oneself as an evaluator of knowledge emerged as important themes to detecting and efficiently resolving discrepancies. We conclude with a discussion of theoretical and methodological implications.

Plausibility Judgments in Conceptual Change and Epistemic Cognition

Plausibility judgments rarely have been addressed empirically in conceptual change research. Recent research, however, suggests that these judgments may be pivotal to conceptual change about certain topics where a gap exists between what scientists and laypersons find plausible. Based on a philosophical and empirical foundation, this article presents a theoretical model of the role of plausibility judgments in conceptual change (PJCC) with implications for epistemic cognition. The PJCC moves beyond the limitations of cold cognitive processing by incorporating the warmer constructs of affect, motivation, and motivated reasoning. We review recent research in plausibility judgments that informed the PJCC's development and discuss components of the model. Of particular note is the importance of using explicit critical evaluation to reappraise plausibility judgments that may have been originally made through implicit cognitive processes. We also suggest potentially productive areas of future research based on the PJCC model.

Optimizing Conditions for Learning: Situating Refutations in Epistemic Cognition

A refutation text is designed to promote conceptual change by explicitly acknowledging commonly held misconceptions about a topic, directly refuting them, and providing an accurate explanation. In this study, we determined the impact of different types of refutation texts on adolescent readers’ conceptual change learning in science. Specifically, we manipulated the way the correct conception was justified and explained following work in epistemic cognition. Three different types of justification were compared to a control condition: justification by authority, justification by multiple sources, and justification by personal opinion. The findings showed that learning effects were optimized when the correct conceptions were presented in terms of a corroborated consensus among multiple sources.

Problematizing Epistemology in Computer Games Research

Epistemic frame theory has guided research using epistemic games, which are computer games focused on rich professional enculturation. Among other things, this theory characterizes communities of practice in terms of their epistemologies, which encompass the standards communities use to justify claims or actions. By drawing on contemporary perspectives in the subfield of research focused on epistemic cognition, this piece argues in favor of disambiguating enacted and professed epistemic cognition in epistemic frame theory, as well as attending to more nuances of the contexts of players' actions. These factors affect how we model communities of practice in games, how we assess players' capabilities, and what types of data we might include in our analyses of players' activity. By integrating with the epistemic cognition scholarship, games researchers could enrich their own work, while also leveraging some unique advantages of game-based learning to support broader goals in the scholarly community.