Addressing the epistemic elephant in the room: Epistemic agency and the next generation science standards

Abstract

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) [Achieve, Inc. []] represent a broad consensus that teaching and learning expectations must change. Rather than memorizing and reciting information, students are now expected to engage in science practices to develop a deep understanding of core science ideas. While we want to share in the optimism about NGSS, the standards are not a silver bullet for transforming science classrooms. They are, instead, another reform document designed to suggest opportunities for students to actively engage in knowledge construction themselves—to be doers of science, rather than receivers of facts. A foundational contradiction underlies these efforts—while we want students to do science, we seem to mean that students should mimic practices others have selected as important to learn, and content others have selected as foundational. As a result, students are rarely positioned with epistemic agency: the power to shape the knowledge production and practices of a community [Stroupe [] Science Education 98:487–516]. We argue that unless the field tackles significant questions around precisely how students can be active agents in knowledge construction, we will likely continue to implement learning environments that position students as receivers of scientific facts and practices, even as classrooms adopt NGSS. In this conceptual analysis article, we unpack the construct of “epistemic agency” and its relationship to the NGSS, using a vignette to illustrate how students are typically positioned in researcher‐developed curricula. The vignette, which describes a seventh‐grade class exploring which of two lakes is more at risk for invasion by the spiny water flea, provides an exemplar of what we take to be a loose consensus about learning environments consistent with the NGSS. However, when we look beneath the surface of the consensus, the vignette reveals contradictions and unresolved issues around epistemic agency.

Fostering students’ epistemic agency through the co‐configuration of moth research

“…Given that students are often positioned as technicians, we wanted to know what happened as students were elevated from marginalized roles as technicians to epistemic agency. Therefore, we coded the data for four possible opportunities in which students could be explicitly positioned with epistemic agency, perceive themselves as epistemically agentic, and to act with that agency (Miller et al., ): Opportunities to solicit and build on student knowledge as a resource for learning : Science education holds a consensus view that students’ understanding should be used as a productive resource in instruction (e.g., Warren et al., ). We coded for ways in which students’ community and culturally based intellectual resources were used for knowledge building. Opportunities to build knowledge through participation in practices : Another broadly endorsed idea is that students should construct knowledge through their participation in science practices (National Research Council, ).…”

“…Students remain technicians; they observe someone else's disciplinary practices and participate in work deemed by the scientist as important, but do not have opportunities to shape the knowledge production in classrooms. Therefore, we wanted to create opportunities for students to be positioned with, to perceive they that they can act, and to act with epistemic agency (Miller et al., ) to help advance local science research of White.…”

“…We argue that co‐configuration requires constant negotiation of epistemic practices (Eriksson & Lindberg, ). In particular, we propose that co‐configuration hinges on actors’ being positioned with, perceiving they that they can act, and acting with epistemic agency—the power for individuals and groups to shape the knowledge production and practices in a setting (Damsa et al., ; Dotson, ; Miller et al., ; Stroupe, ). Epistemic agency is necessary for actors to negotiate knowledge practices and production, which are foundational for co‐configuration.…”

“…We argue that framing students solely as technicians skews their view of their current and future participation in science; students see that they can engage in certain rote aspects of daily science work, but are not permitted to shape knowledge production and practices of a community, which some researchers describe as epistemic agency (Damsa, Kirschner, Andriessen, Erkens, & Sins, ; Dotson, ; Miller, Russ, Stroupe, & Berland, ; Stroupe, ). When students are framed as technicians, they learn that the teacher is the solitary epistemic authority in the classroom.…”

Representing scientific activity: Affordances and constraints of central design and enactment features of a model‐based inquiry unit

“…Miller, Manz, Russ, Stroupe, and Berland () point out how, even as teachers begin to consider more progressive visions of science teaching and learning (e.g., found in NGSS), underexplored and undertheorized tensions exist related to how scientific activity is more authentically represented for learners in classrooms. They highlight what they perceive as a possible contradiction related to how the specificity in which science practices and disciplinary ideas are identified in the standards documents may not leave enough space for students’ agency in pursuing their ideas in classrooms.…”