Exploring the dimensions of personal epistemology in differing classroom contexts: Student interpretations during the first year of college [An article from: Contemporary Educational Psychology]

This digital document is a journal article from Contemporary Educational Psychology, published by Elsevier in 2004. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
The study of personal epistemology has typically addressed the theories and beliefs that individuals hold about knowledge and knowing, and the way in which such epistemological perspectives are related to academic learning. This qualitative, exploratory case study focuses on the epistemology of instructional practices as interpreted by students in two versions of introductory-level college chemistry, each with different underlying epistemological assumptions. Classroom observations and interviews of 25 first-year students provide a contextualized perspective on the dimensionality of beliefs as identified in the literature: certainty of knowledge, simplicity of knowledge, source of knowledge, and justification for knowing. This research suggests that students' perceptions of instructional practices are interpreted through the lens of their epistemological assumptions, but that such perspectives are evolving and instructors may influence them in multiple ways.