Unpacking the connections between 8th graders' climate literacy and epistemic cognition

Abstract

Our epistemic cognition informs what scientific claims we choose to endorse over others, how we come to know in science, and our assumptions about the construction of scientific knowledge. The topic of climate change provides context for how we come to know about our surrounding environment. The development of climate literacy in young learners has received heightened attention over the last decade. What learners choose to believe about the topic of climate change presents an epistemic challenge for science educators as they help students navigate through a sea of information that often contains competing claims. The study described here examines how climate literacy and epistemic cognition interact in a group of 8th grade students in the Midwestern United States. Findings from Rasch analysis of survey responses and coding of student interviews suggests a positive relationship between learners' climate literacy and epistemic cognition, with participants tending to exhibit quasireflective judgment when justifying their beliefs about the causes and effects of climate change, how scientists come to know about Earth's climate, and the level of certainty that researchers have about changes to our climate system. Implications for the development of

Uso de tipos de justificaciones en función del contexto cotidiano, científico y pseudocientífico

“…es lo que se conoce como Cognición Epistémica. La cognición epistémica es el pensamiento meta reflexivo que implica conocer y reflexionar sobre nuestras propias creencias acerca de lo que conocemos (Barzilai y Chinn, 2018;Chinn et al, 2011;Quarderer et al, 2021). Este pensamiento incluye la comprensión de lo que se necesita para construir el conocimiento (como, por ejemplo, saber de la naturaleza de la ciencia) y también lo que se requiere para poder justificarlo (Chinn et al, 2023), lo cual constituye una capacidad esencial para trabajar en el desarrollo de las habilidades de pensamiento crítico que se exigen de la ciudadanía en el siglo actual (Greene y Yu, 2016).…”

Climate Change and the Social World: Discourse Analysis of Students’ Intuitive Understandings

“…This challenge is reflected in recent research that shows a myriad of influences on science learning around climate change, far beyond the changes in conceptual knowledge often implicated in other domains of science learning. For example, research shows that worldview (Zummo et al, 2021 ), social norms (Busch et al, 2019b ), values (Aksit et al, 2018 ), epistemic cognition (Quarderer et al, 2021 ), political identity (Walsh & Tsurusaki, 2018 ), and emotions (Hufnagel, 2015 ) are likely influential. As a whole, this work has begun to reveal the multiple, complex, and at times contradictory influences these variables can exert on learning about such a socially and culturally fraught issue as climate change.…”