Unpacking students’ epistemic cognition in a physics problem‐solving environment

Abstract

It is a widely held view that students’ epistemic beliefs influence the way they think and learn in a given context, however, in the science learning context, the relationship between sophisticated epistemic beliefs and success in scientific practice is sometimes ambiguous. Taking this inconsistency as a point of departure, we examined the relationship between students’ scientific epistemic beliefs (SEB), their epistemic practices, and their epistemic cognition in a computer simulation in classical mechanics. Tenth grade students’ manipulations of the simulation, spoken comments, and behavior were screen and video‐recorded and subsequently transcribed and coded. In addition, a stimulated recall interview was undertaken to access students’ thinking and reflections on their practice, in order to understand their practice and make inferences about their process of epistemic cognition. The paper reports on the detailed analysis of the data sets for three students of widely different SEB and performance levels. Comparing the SEB, problem solutions and epistemic practices of the three students has enabled us to examine the interplay between SEB, problem‐solving strategies (PS), conceptual understanding (CU), and metacognitive reflection (MCR), to see how these operate together to facilitate problem solutions. From the analysis, we can better understand how different students’ epistemic cognition is adaptive to the context. The findings have implications for teaching science and further research into epistemic cognition.

Development of a questionnaire for assessing Spanish‐speaking students' understanding of the nature of models and their uses in science

“…Accordingly, the items that comprise these instruments do not need to refer to specific scientific domains, a view consistent with many studies on the nature of science. The alternative perspective, which is critical of this generic approach, considers that students' understanding of models must be examined in context (Grünkorn et al, 2014; Krell et al, 2014; Krell & Krüger, 2015; Lindfors et al, 2020; Sins et al, 2009). The premise here is that their epistemic knowledge is likely to be of a situated nature, and hence, in specific contexts, students may be able to contemplate advanced epistemological ideas without being able to explain the underlying viewpoints in general (Sins et al, 2009).…”

“…Another issue to consider is that some authors have criticized the fact that the vast majority of research on epistemic beliefs has used self‐report surveys (Lindfors et al, 2020). It is argued that this type of instrument, particularly when consisting of closed items, may allow students to give “high‐level” answers based on hearsay only (Sins et al, 2009), whereas qualitative studies suggest that students in fact have a naïve and unsophisticated epistemological understanding of models (Lazenby et al, 2019).…”

Converting Digital Resources into Epistemic Tools Enhancing STEM Learning

“…However, the epistemic tool concept is increasingly studied [8] and has already been used across different STEM subjects [1]. As mentioned above, the epistemic tool concept is linked to epistemic practices [5] and epistemic cognition [7], when students solve a task in a given educational context, and to the epistemic moves that teachers make so that students can be the subjects of their own learning [8,9].…”

“…Although the research shows that there are various educational resources for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) with potential to help teachers create more stimulating and challenging learning environments (e.g., epistemic learning), often teachers fail to obtain educational advantages from their use. orchestrated to improve the quality of students learning, in particular improving epistemic learning [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. These results make it more urgent for teachers to adopt digital resources as epistemic tools.…”

Investigating structural relationships amongupper‐secondaryschool students' beliefs about knowledge, justification for knowing, andInternet‐specificjustification in the domain of science

“…For example, Osborne et al (2003) highlighted views about science and certainty, scientific methods and critical testing, analysis and interpretation of data, hypothesis and prediction, diversity of scientific thinking, creativity, science and questioning, and cooperation and collaboration as relevant to the NOS. Regarding the potential influences of students' beliefs about science on science learning and science literacy, science education researchers have shown relationships with inquiry learning, argumentation, conceptual understanding, and problem solving in science (e.g., Lindfors et al, 2019; Nussbaum et al, 2008; Stathopoulou & Vosniadou, 2007; Tsai, 1999). Accordingly, a six‐item measure of epistemic beliefs about science was included in the 2015 Program for International Student Assessment, with these items targeting the tentativeness of scientific ideas and the importance of gathering evidence from multiple experiments (OECD, 2016).…”