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Methodological considerations for the study of epistemic cognition in practice
... Therefore, epistemic practices can be considered as specific manners through which the members of a community propose, communicate, assess, and legitimize knowledge propositions (Kelly, 2008). The author, while characterizing these practices, suggests that epistemic practices are interactional, contextual, intertextual, and consequential (Kelly, 2016). ...
... The actions developed by members of a group have as main component ways of talking and being, including typical signs and symbols. The participation in the speech requires knowledge on how to properly take part in the group and includes not only functional aspects of the semantics used, but also aspects that are mostly implicit ones and that enable the conversation, such as the ways that are considered as adequate by the group as per how to act (Kelly, 2016). Discursive processes are central in the development of standards and expectations. ...
... Written and spoken texts are referenced, resumed, adapted, and reinterpreted within the group. The analysis enables the comprehension on how the concepts reflect the assumptions created within a group based on the goals and needs (Kelly, 2016). ...
Neste artigo, analisamos continuidades e mudanças na construção de práticas epistêmicas em dois contextos instrucionais distintos: investigativo (EnCI) e sociocientífico (QSC). Baseados na Etnografia em Educação, acompanhamos estudantes de uma turma do 8° ano do Ensino Fundamental ao longo de um ano em aulas de ciências. Selecionamos um evento para análise das práticas epistêmicas a partir de interações discursivas. Os resultados da análise deste evento, à luz de outros eventos ocorridos ao longo do ano, indicam relações complementares entre as abordagens EnCI e QSC. Atividades em contexto investigativo favoreceram o posicionamento consciente e justificado pelos estudantes em discussões sociocientíficas. Atividades em contexto sociocientífico, por sua vez, catalisaram a emergência de práticas epistêmicas mais complexas. Defendemos, portanto, as vantagens pedagógicas de articulações entre o EnCI e as QSC, entendidas como complementares, tendo em vista os objetivos da educação científica no século XXI.
... Assim, práticas epistêmicas podem ser consideradas maneiras específicas com as quais membros de uma comunidade propõem, comunicam, avaliam e legitimam proposições do conhecimento (Kelly, 2008). O autor, ao caracterizar tais práticas, propõe que práticas epistêmicas são interacionais, contextuais, intertextuais e consequenciais (Kelly, 2016). ...
... As ações desenvolvidas por membros de um grupo têm como componente principal maneiras de falar e ser, incluindo sinais e símbolos característicos. A participação no discurso requer um conhecimento sobre como participar adequadamente do grupo e inclui não só aspectos funcionais da semântica usada, mas também aspectos muitas vezes implícitos, mas que tornam a conversação possível, como maneiras consideradas adequadas pelo grupo sobre como agir (Kelly, 2016). Os processos discursivos são centrais no desenvolvimento de normas e expectativas. ...
... Textos escritos e falados são referenciados, retomados, apropriados e reinterpretados dentro do grupo. Sua análise possibilita compreender como os conceitos refletem os pressupostos criados dentro de um grupo baseado em seus objetivos e necessidades (Kelly, 2016). ...
Neste artigo, analisamos continuidades e mudanças na construção de práticas epistêmicas em dois contextos instrucionais distintos: investigativo (EnCI) e sociocientífico (QSC). Baseados na Etnografia em Educação, acompanhamos estudantes de uma turma do 8° ano do Ensino Fundamental ao longo de um ano em aulas de ciências. Selecionamos um evento para análise das práticas epistêmicas a partir de interações discursivas. Os resultados da análise deste evento, à luz de outros eventos ocorridos ao longo do ano, indicam relações complementares entre as abordagens EnCI e QSC. Atividades em contexto investigativo favoreceram o posicionamento consciente e justificado pelos estudantes em discussões sociocientíficas. Atividades em contexto sociocientífico, por sua vez, catalisaram a emergência de práticas epistêmicas mais complexas. Defendemos, portanto, as vantagens pedagógicas de articulações entre o EnCI e as QSC, entendidas como complementares, tendo em vista os objetivos da educação científica no século XXI.
... Therefore, epistemic practices can be considered as specific manners through which the members of a community propose, communicate, assess, and legitimize knowledge propositions (Kelly, 2008). The author, while characterizing these practices, suggests that epistemic practices are interactional, contextual, intertextual, and consequential (Kelly, 2016). ...
... The actions developed by members of a group have as main component ways of talking and being, including typical signs and symbols. The participation in the speech requires knowledge on how to properly take part in the group and includes not only functional aspects of the semantics used, but also aspects that are mostly implicit ones and that enable the conversation, such as the ways that are considered as adequate by the group as per how to act (Kelly, 2016). Discursive processes are central in the development of standards and expectations. ...
... Written and spoken texts are referenced, resumed, adapted, and reinterpreted within the group. The analysis enables the comprehension on how the concepts reflect the assumptions created within a group based on the goals and needs (Kelly, 2016). ...
Neste artigo, analisamos continuidades e mudanças na construção de práticas epistêmicas em dois contextos instrucionais distintos: investigativo (EnCI) e sociocientífico (QSC). Baseados na Etnografia em Educação, acompanhamos estudantes de uma turma do 8° ano do Ensino Fundamental ao longo de um ano em aulas de ciências. Selecionamos um evento para análise das práticas epistêmicas a partir de interações discursivas. Os resultados da análise deste evento, à luz de outros eventos ocorridos ao longo do ano, indicam relações complementares entre as abordagens EnCI e QSC. Atividades em contexto investigativo favoreceram o posicionamento consciente e justificado pelos estudantes em discussões sociocientíficas. Atividades em contexto sociocientífico, por sua vez, catalisaram a emergência de práticas epistêmicas mais complexas. Defendemos, portanto, as vantagens pedagógicas de articulações entre o EnCI e as QSC, entendidas como complementares, tendo em vista os objetivos da educação científica no século XXI.
... Assim, práticas epistêmicas podem ser consideradas maneiras específicas com as quais membros de uma comunidade propõem, comunicam, avaliam e legitimam proposições do conhecimento (Kelly, 2008). O autor, ao caracterizar tais práticas, propõe que práticas epistêmicas são interacionais, contextuais, intertextuais e consequenciais (Kelly, 2016). ...
... As ações desenvolvidas por membros de um grupo têm como componente principal maneiras de falar e ser, incluindo sinais e símbolos característicos. A participação no discurso requer um conhecimento sobre como participar adequadamente do grupo e inclui não só aspectos funcionais da semântica usada, mas também aspectos muitas vezes implícitos, mas que tornam a conversação possível, como maneiras consideradas adequadas pelo grupo sobre como agir (Kelly, 2016). Os processos discursivos são centrais no desenvolvimento de normas e expectativas. ...
... Textos escritos e falados são referenciados, retomados, apropriados e reinterpretados dentro do grupo. Sua análise possibilita compreender como os conceitos refletem os pressupostos criados dentro de um grupo baseado em seus objetivos e necessidades (Kelly, 2016). ...
Neste artigo, analisamos continuidades e mudanças na construção de práticas epistêmicas em dois contextos instrucionais distintos: investigativo (EnCI) e sociocientífico (QSC). Baseados na Etnografia em Educação, acompanhamos estudantes de uma turma do 8° ano do Ensino Fundamental ao longo de um ano em aulas de ciências. Selecionamos um evento para análise das práticas epistêmicas a partir de interações discursivas. Os resultados da análise deste evento, à luz de outros eventos ocorridos ao longo do ano, indicam relações complementares entre as abordagens EnCI e QSC. Atividades em contexto investigativo favoreceram o posicionamento consciente e justificado pelos estudantes em discussões sociocientíficas. Atividades em contexto sociocientífico, por sua vez, catalisaram a emergência de práticas epistêmicas mais complexas. Defendemos, portanto, as vantagens pedagógicas de articulações entre o EnCI e as QSC, entendidas como complementares, tendo em vista os objetivos da educação científica no século XXI.
... Em trabalhos mais recentes, exemplos de PEs são elencados em três abordagens distintas (ensino por investigação; ensino de ciências por meio da engenharia; trabalho com questões sociocientíficas) Cunningham & Kelly, 2017;Kelly & Licona, 2018). Porém, Kelly e Licona (2018) destacam que, de modo geral, as PEs são: (i) interacionaisse dão por meio da interação, intermediada pela linguagem, entre pessoas, textos, objetos e tecnologias, de forma que o discurso dos membros deste grupo revela o conhecimento comunicativo que possuem e que os torna capazes de participar desta comunidade; (ii) contextuaisconstruídas no momento e situadas no tempo, no espaço e em normas culturais, devendo ser investigadas levando em conta a construção do conhecimento em diferentes níveis de análise temporal (micro, meso, ontogenético e sócio-histórico); (iii) intertextuaiscompreendem processos discursivos que se tornam constitutivos da comunidade, mas que refletem outros discursos, tanto orais como escritos, incluindo símbolos do campo disciplinar; e (iv) consequenciaisdefinem quais conhecimentos são vistos como válidos dentro de um grupo (Kelly, 2016;Kelly & Licona, 2018). ...
... Após muitos trabalhos nos quais teoriza, conceitua e fundamenta o construto das PEs, Kelly (2016) traz uma abordagem metodológica alternativa para o estudo da cognição epistêmica (Greene et al., 2010). Em contraposição à pesquisa da cognição epistêmica e ontológica utilizando modelos de desenvolvimento da epistemologia pessoal e sistemas de crenças nela envolvidos, Kelly (2016) propõe o estudo da cognição epistêmica situada em práticas sociais, por meio do exame de PEs. ...
... Após muitos trabalhos nos quais teoriza, conceitua e fundamenta o construto das PEs, Kelly (2016) traz uma abordagem metodológica alternativa para o estudo da cognição epistêmica (Greene et al., 2010). Em contraposição à pesquisa da cognição epistêmica e ontológica utilizando modelos de desenvolvimento da epistemologia pessoal e sistemas de crenças nela envolvidos, Kelly (2016) propõe o estudo da cognição epistêmica situada em práticas sociais, por meio do exame de PEs. Ele se concentra no discurso utilizado em situações em que questões relativas ao conhecimento estão em jogo. ...
Neste artigo apresentamos um estudo de revisão bibliográfica a partir de artigos brasileiros da área de Educação em Ciências que empregam o construto de Práticas Epistêmicas (PEs). O corpus constitui-se de dezoito artigos de periódicos classificados como Qualis A1 ou A2, publicados entre 2008 e 2021. Foram analisados os focos temáticos das pesquisas, as definições de PEs presentes, o diálogo com a obra de Gregory Kelly e as metodologias utilizadas. Os resultados evidenciam que: i) o construto tem sido explorado com mais frequência em pesquisas sobre o Ensino de Ciências por Investigação; ii) além das definições de PEs, a maioria dos artigos nacionais faz uso de outras ideias concebidas e apoiadas por Kelly; iii) o aspecto mais comum é que a construção do conhecimento científico no interior de uma comunidade envolve proposição, comunicação, avaliação e legitimação, e que a promoção do engajamento em PEs deve figurar dentre os objetivos didáticos de aulas de ciências; iv) a produção analisada não compartilha referenciais teórico-metodológicos que orientaram os trabalhos de Kelly sobre PEs, como a Etnografia Interacional. Argumentamos que as PEs têm o potencial de contribuir para avanços das discussões no campo da Educação em Ciências no Brasil no sentido de delimitar os pressupostos de teorias e de estudos empíricos, assim como indicar novas direções de pesquisa e agregar novos membros à comunidade produtora de conhecimento.
... In this study, we used ANT to examine epistemic practices and their advancements in the context It is accepted that epistemology concerns not only the nature of knowledge but also its limits and how it is constructed, processed, and evaluated (Greene et al., 2016). We follow epistemology as a social practice approach to the study of epistemology in educational contexts that explores how knowledge is produced, evaluated, and justified through interactions among individuals (Kelly, 2016). ...
... Three general research directions have been adopted to study epistemology in education, personal epistemology, disciplinary epistemology, and social epistemic practices. Personal epistemology is a prominent research perspective that often follows fixed models and tools to assess students' epistemological stances and beliefs (Greene et al., 2016a;Kelly, 2016). This perspective has revealed valuable insights regarding the connection between epistemic stances and the learning outcomes of individuals. ...
... The teacher invited her students to participate in aerospace engineering activities and instructed them to design a parachute for space landing, considering how its characteristics affect its drop speed. In reflection on this data, Kelly (2016) delineated how epistemic practices, such as observation, data analysis, and redesigning, are embodied in teacher and student interactions. Knowledge is produced and considered intersubjectively between the participants and relevant texts. ...
The present paper inquires whether a meticulous program designed to resolve Interdisciplinary Societal Dilemmas through dialogic argumentation advances epistemic practices. To delineate how epistemic practices are manifested in classroom discussions, we adopted the Actor-Network Theory (ANT), which explores the interactions and agencies of human and non-human actors. ANT analyses uncover the power these actors exert on each other and help recognize the networks that these actors create or dissolve. They also delineate how epistemic practices emerge and are shaped in these networks. We identified four epistemic practices in the discussions: (1) taking a reasoned position, (2) integrating knowledge from different disciplines, (3) weighing pros and cons before taking a complex position, and (4) role-playing in a democratic game. We show that the type of discourse developed in the program was mostly dialogic argumentation. In addition, we demonstrate how teachers often inhibit these advancements. Indeed, in the case of integrating knowledge from different disciplines, teachers’ role is central, but the emerged actors’ network is often non-dialogic. Moreover, we show how non-human actors shape the interactions in networks as well as the formation of knowledge and agency. We conclude that: (a) the design of activities for resolving interdisciplinary societal dilemmas provides many opportunities for advancing epistemic practices, (b) these practices are mostly advanced through dialogic argumentation, but (c) more efforts should be invested in affording interdisciplinary argumentation.
... Thus, the ontology of a group at a given time is dependent on the constructs available in the epistemic culture. Taken together, these three premises define epistemic cognition as learned ways of reasoning about knowledge (Kelly, 2016). ...
... I define epistemic practices as the socially organized and interactionally accomplished ways that members of a group propose, justify, assess, and legitimize knowledge claims (Kelly, 2008;Kelly & Licona, 2018). From this perspective, epistemic practices can be characterized as follows (Kelly, 2016): ...
... Discourse processes make use of and reference to previous discourse, both spoken and written texts, including the various signs and symbols characteristic of disciplinary knowledge, and are thus intertextual (Bazerman, 2004;Green & Castanheira, 2012). Reference to previous texts codifies an ontology of a social group (e.g., members of a discipline or subdiscipline) through use and shared assumptions of meaning (Kelly, 2016). ...
... They also serve to make visible a social constructionist as well as a sociocultural approach to the study of social, cultural and linguistic phenomena that shape, and are shaped by (Fairclough, 1992; what participants in particular learning environments count as learning and knowledge (cf. Heap, 1991;Kelly, 2016). ...
... Central to the view of the social constructionist and sociocultural perspectives that guide an IE logicof-inquiry are a series of arguments that invite researchers to (re)think how they view the concept of culture and the nature of discourse (Agar, 2006;Bloome & Clarke, 2006;Kelly, 2016). In this section, we present a set of theoretical arguments that are central to understanding the roles of discourse in the social construction of knowledge central to an IE logic-of-inquiry. ...
... Bakhtin's argument, therefore, orients IE researchers to the value in exploring the roots of discourse and how across times and events of interconnected opportunities for learning, consequential progressions are constructed (Putney, Green, Dixon, Duran, & Yeager, 2000). Bakhtin's conceptualization of the over time nature of discourse also relates to directions across disciplines that focus on understanding what counts as knowledge of concepts, processes and practices within and across disciplinary settings (Kelly, 2016) and how through discourse local knowledge (Mercer & Hodgkinson, 2008) is constructed. ...
This chapter on Interactional Ethnography (IE) lays out the guiding logic-of-inquiry and the governing principles of operation and conduct (Heath, 1982), and the theoretical perspectives guiding the iterative, recursive and abductive (IRA) logic and actions (Agar, 2006) that constitute Interactional Ethnography (IE) as a logic-of-inquiry. This logic-of-inquiry guides outsiders (ethnographers) as they seek to develop understandings of what insiders need to know, understand, produce and predict as they learn with, and from, others in particular educational and social environments (Heath, 1982; Street, 1993). Specifically, an IE logic-of-inquiry supports researchers in exploring what is being constructed in and through micro moments of discourse-in-use, historical roots of observed phenomena, and macro level sources that support and/or constrain the opportunities for learning afforded to, constructed by, and taken up (or not), by participants in purposefully designed educational programs (e.g., Castanheira, Crawford, Green & Dixon, 2000; Green, Skukauskaite, Dixon & Cordóva, 2007; Bridges, Botelho, Green & Chau, 2012). This goal, as we will demonstrate complements the goals of the learning scientists who seek to develop situated understandings of learning as a social and cognitive construction (Danish & Gresalfi, this volume), and a design-based research approach (Puntambekar, this volume).
... To understand the particularities of epistemic practices that emerge from reasoning about a SSI, we deepen our studies about reasoning and epistemic cognition (for example, Alexander, 2016;Chinn & Buckland, 2011;Clément, 2016;Elby et al., 2016;Greene et al., 2016;Kelly, 2016;Kienhues et al., 2016;Kuhn, 1991;Moshman & Tarricone, 2016;Toulmin, 2006) seeking to understand the fundamental cognitive processes that the students should develop to take up critical positions with regard to the SSI. Later, we identify relationships between reasoning, cognition, and epistemic practices. ...
... As cognition refers to mental processes, internalised based on the social sphere, and the term 'epistemic' refers to knowledge (this being acquired through social processes), epistemic cognition can be understood as the learnt ways about how to reason, for the construction of knowledge (Elby et al., 2016;Kelly, 2016). ...
... We have developed a model, shown in Figure 1, seeking to make a representation of the relations we have established so far, with regard to reasoning, cognition, practice, and epistemic goals within the development of epistemic practices in the SSI approach. It is important to mention that, in this work, we do not make any efforts to project types of epistemic practices that arise in the SSI context, as we consider the contextual character of these (Kelly, 2008(Kelly, , 2016, we believe that it is the epistemic goals that should be given priority, so that the practices may emerge. ...
In this paper, we present a model that relates epistemic practices and socio-scientific issues (SSI) in science education. In order to develop it, we establish interweavings between norms, practices, epistemic objectives, epistemic cognition, informal reasoning, epistemic practices and justified positioning. We suggest that epistemic cognition is the link between reasoning and epistemic practices. We present three epistemic goals that should guide work with epistemic practices when solving a SSI: recognising and using multiple lines of reasoning when solving the SSI, construction and evaluation of holistic arguments aiming to understand the multiple dimensions of the SSI and the development of sceptical investigations to resolve the SSI. The stated objectives contribute to the critical assessment and resolution of the SSI. We believe that for the construction of social norms in teaching environments with SSI, it should be considered that these questions do not require a “single” answer and, therefore, a space for reflection, awareness and justification of the different perspectives on the question must be allowed. The relationships established in this article contribute to research that aims to develop and analyse epistemic practices “in situ” in teaching contexts with SSI. In addition, they have the potential to provide support to teachers who wish to favour the occurrence of epistemic practices in a SSI approach.
... Para compreendermos sobre as particularidades das práticas epistêmicas que emergem do raciocínio sobre uma QSC aprofundamos nosso estudo sobre raciocínio e cognição epistêmica (por exemplo, Alexander, 2016;Chinn & Buckland, 2011;Clément, 2016;Elby et al., 2016;Greene et al., 2016;Kelly, 2016;Kienhues et al., 2016;Kuhn, 1991;Moshman & Tarricone, 2016;Toulmin, 2006) visando compreender os processos cognitivos fundamentais que os estudantes devem desenvolver para tomar posicionamentos críticos sobre as QSC. Posteriormente, identificamos relações entre raciocínio, cognição e práticas epistêmicas. ...
... Como a cognição refere-se aos processos mentais internalizados a partir da esfera social e o termo epistêmico relaciona-se ao conhecimento (sendo esse aprendido a partir de processos sociais), a cognição epistêmica pode ser compreendida como as formas aprendidas sobre como raciocinar para a construção de conhecimento (Elby et al., 2016;Kelly, 2016). ...
... Desenvolvemos um modelo, apresentado na figura 1, visando representar as relações que estabelecemos até aqui sobre raciocínio, cognição, prática e objetivos epistêmicos no desenvolvimento de práticas epistêmicas em abordagem QSC. É importante ressaltar que neste trabalho não realizamos esforços em projetar tipos de práticas epistêmicas que surgem no contexto QSC, porque considerando o caráter contextual delas (Kelly, 2008(Kelly, , 2016, acreditamos que são os objetivos epistêmicos que devem ser priorizados a fim de que as práticas possam emergir. ...
No presente trabalho apresentamos um modelo que relaciona práticas epistêmicas e questões sociocientíficas (QSC) no ensino de ciências. Para desenvolvê-lo estabelecemos entrelaçamentos entre normas, práticas sociais, objetivos epistêmicos, cognição epistêmica, raciocínio informal, práticas epistêmicas e posicionamento justificado. Sugerimos que a cognição epistêmica é o elo entre raciocínio e práticas epistêmicas. Apresentamos três objetivos epistêmicos que devem direcionar o trabalho com práticas epistêmicas durante a resolução de uma QSC: reconhecimento e utilização de múltiplas linhas de raciocínio ao resolver a QSC, construção e avaliação de argumentos holísticos visando compreender as múltiplas dimensões da QSC e desenvolvimento de investigações céticas para resolver as QSC. Os objetivos apontados contribuem para a avaliação e resolução crítica dessas questões. Julgamos que para a resolução das QSC no ensino é importante a construção de normas sociais considerando-se que essas questões não requerem uma resposta “única” e, portanto, um espaço de reflexão, conscientização e justificação das diferentes perspectivas sobre a questão deve ser oportunizado. As relações estabelecidas no presente artigo contribuem para pesquisas que visam desenvolver e analisar práticas epistêmicas “in situ” em abordagem de ensino com QSC. Além disso, têm potencial de fornecer apoio aos professores que desejam favorecer a ocorrência de práticas epistêmicas em abordagem QSC.
... Epistemic practices have been defined as the way in which group members propose, communicate, evaluate, and legalize knowledge claims through social interaction (Kelly, 2016). For instance, Kelly and Duschl (2002) highlighted the important roles of three epistemic practices, namely representing data, persuading peers, and observing from a particular point of view, in knowledge production, communication, and appropriation. ...
... Practical epistemology is defined as "students' enactment of disciplinary practices" (Hamilton & Duschl, 2017, p. 103). Practical epistemologies also refer to epistemologies as used in specific practices, such as ways of justifying, evaluating, and legitimizing knowledge within a disciplinary framework (Kelly, 2016). While personal epistemologies are commonly viewed as beliefs, practical epistemologies are viewed as action (Wickman, 2004) or as social practices (Kelly, 2016). ...
... Practical epistemologies also refer to epistemologies as used in specific practices, such as ways of justifying, evaluating, and legitimizing knowledge within a disciplinary framework (Kelly, 2016). While personal epistemologies are commonly viewed as beliefs, practical epistemologies are viewed as action (Wickman, 2004) or as social practices (Kelly, 2016). ...
Promoting understanding of the epistemologies of science has long been the primary objective in science education, and can be viewed as a form of science learning outcome. Many studies have attempted to understand learners' conceptions of epistemology in science from various perspectives and methods; however, no recent reviews have focused on the measurement of various constructs and variables of epistemologies of science. The main purpose of this review study is to understand how these epistemologies in science teaching and learning were measured, and to provide an overview of recent developments with respect to the measurement issue in the epistemology of science. We searched for articles that were published between 2010 and 2019 and retained 225 eligible studies passing all review criteria for inclusion in this review. Major constructs of epistemologies of science emerging from the studies include epistemic beliefs and views, nature of science, epistemic emotions, epistemic metacognition, epistemic practices, and epistemic resources. These constructs were further categorized into personal, productive, and practical epistemologies. Among these studies, most of the quantitative studies used questionnaires for measuring personal epistemologies, while only a few utilized close‐ended items. The majority of the studies adopting qualitative methods investigated personal epistemologies as well. Nevertheless, among studies of practical epistemologies, more studies adopted qualitative methods than quantitative methods. We summarize the characteristics and psychometric properties of the most frequently used quantitative research instruments. Examples of qualitative data collection and data analyses are provided. Relationships between epistemologies and science learning outcomes are discussed, and suggestions are made for future directions.
... These telling case studies also make transparent how the analytic logic constructed by these researchers supported their investigations of how and in what ways particular learning processes, practices, and conceptual knowledge were introduced to, and constructed with, students in these classes. By holding the level of schooling (secondary education) constant and varying the academic area of study (Physics and Visual Arts), we seek to make transparent how ME/DA, as a logic of inquiry, can be undertaken to examine social, epistemological, and communicative processes, practices, and conceptual systems in different educational contexts (Kelly, 2016a(Kelly, , 2016b. ...
... It also creates a foundation for understanding studies in Kelly's larger program of research, which have been undertaken over the past two decades. This program of research has led to the identification of new and previously unexamined dimensions of processes in classrooms that shape students' access to, and understandings of, knowledge and epistemic practices of science and engineering within and across different levels of school and classroom contexts (e.g., Kelly, 2008aKelly, , 2008bKelly, , 2016bKelly & Cunningham, 2017;Kelly & Licona, 2018). ...
... For example, Figures 1 and 2 (Figures 3 and 7, respectively, in the original publication; Kelly et al., 2001) were designed to provide a basis for examining how the group came together and the sequences of decisions and actions leading to the production of knowledge claims and engagement in epistemic practices (Kelly, 2016b;Kelly & Chen, 1999). This level of sociolinguistic analysis was informed by the following microethnographic question: How and in what ways were the students engaging in and with the technology-generated texts as well as the actions and verbal/nonverbal interactions within the group? ...
This review presents theoretical underpinnings supporting microethnographic-discourse analytic (ME/DA) approaches to studying educational phenomena. The review is presented in two parts. Part 1 provides an analytic review of two seminal reviews of literature that frame theoretical and methodological developments of microethnography and functions language in classrooms with diverse learners. Part 2 presents two telling case studies that illustrate the logic-of-inquiry of (ME/DA) approaches. These telling case studies make transparent how theoretical considerations of cultural perspectives on education inform decisions regarding research methodology. Telling Case Study 1 makes transparent the logic-of-inquiry undertaken to illustrate how microanalyses of discourse and action among participants in a physics class provided an empirical grounding for identifying how different groups undertook a common task. This case study shows how ethnographically informed discourse analyses formed a foundation to theoretically identify social processes of knowledge construction. Telling Case Study 2 makes transparent multiple levels of analysis undertaken to examine ways that creative processes of interpretation of art were communicated and taken up in an art studio class across multiple cycles of activity. Taken together, these telling case studies provide evidence of how ME/DA provides a theoretically grounded logic-of-inquiry for investigating complex learning processes in different educational contexts.
... 1. Entiende aprender ciencias como participar en los objetivos epistémicos de la ciencia (Duschl, 2008;Kelly, 2008), es decir, en los objetivos de construcción del conocimiento: cómo se construye, por qué sabemos lo que sabemos, qué criterios utilizamos para evaluar teorías, modelos, explicaciones. Para Kelly (2016) diseñar ambientes de aprendizaje en los que los significados se definan socialmente en torno a la actividad intencionada (purposeful activity). Desde el punto de vista de las orientaciones curriculares, las prácticas científicas son una de las tres dimensiones de la enseñanza de las ciencias en los Next Generation Science Standards, NGSS (Achieve, 2013), junto a los conceptos transversales y las ideas clave. ...
... In this piece of research, argumentation is framed as a complex scientific practice, and so it is seen as participation in the epistemic aims of science, and as a purposeful activity (Kelly, 2016). The study draws on recent environmental science literature, providing evidence for the environmental benefits of those diets with higher presence of vegetables and for the contribution of meat-based diets to global warming and resources depletion. ...
... as como prácticas epistémicas en áreas de contenido o contextos de aprendizaje determinados. 2. Las prácticas científicas se caracterizan por la actividad, entendida como mental y discursiva, no solo experimental. Más que «aprender» lo que son, el alumnado debe tomar parte en ellas, indagando, construyendo, usando y revisando modelos, argumentando.Kelly (2016) propone ...
Human diet is almost solely considered in nutritional terms, without paying attention to its impact on the environment. This study examines how pre-service teachers and high school students perceive five dimensions of diet (nutritional, environmental, economic, ethical and cultural-personal), particularly focusing on environment. The research questions are: 1) how does their assessment of the environmental impact of diet change in the context of an argumentative teaching sequence? 2) Which data do they use and how do they use them in their arguments about the appropriateness of different diets according to environmental criteria? Their perceptions change from an initial invisibility of the environmental impact of diets to a full consideration of its relevance and an increased presence of the environment in their arguments. We suggest a need for problematizing diet and its sustainability, making its environmental impact more visible.
... This idyllic aim meets an educational realm that impede such interactions. Specifically, the compartmentalization of the scientific disciplines in school causes each discipline to encourage a univocal discourse -representing one style of reasoning and a narrow set of epistemic practices -practices related to the construction, justification and evaluation of scientific knowledge (Kelly, 2016). ...
... To account for the epistemic dimension of the dialogue (RQ2), participants' utterances were coded based on the epistemic practices they applied in their discourse. Thus, our study joins efforts in science education research to investigate the epistemic practices of learners in situ, in their actual learning interactions and during the course of their practical work (Kelly, 2016). Based on Sandoval and Milwood (2008), we focused on the different sources teachers used to justify their claims (Table 1): ...
Research in the learning sciences has recognized dialogic argumentation as a key approach to enhance learning. Productive features of such dialogues include openness to alternative perspectives, critical examination, and collaborative knowledge construction. Such deliberation is difficult to achieve within the compartmentalized structure of traditional science teaching, which hinders the exploration of different perspectives on a scientific problem. We propose interdisciplinarity as a means to promote deliberativeness in the discourse of science teachers from different disciplinary backgrounds. We introduce a quantitative coding instrument to examine both the dialogic and epistemic aspects of teachers' discourse and to account for deliberation through the integration of different disciplinary epistemic practices.
... According to Lopes (2012), the teacher's mediation is a structural basis to promote the student's productive involvement, which is essential for the student to be able to act autonomously and thus produce significant epistemic actions. Therefore, it is seen that the teacher's mediation is crucial for the generation of epistemic practices (Kelly, 2008(Kelly, , 2016Markauskaite & Goodyear, 2017b) with the use and reuse of the physical laboratory (Bernhard, 2018). Therefore, the teacher's mediation is a structuring point for achieving beneficial results involved in the mediation of learning using the physical laboratory of Computer Networks. ...
... The results show that in the context of work in the physical laboratory of networks, the orchestrations of mediation patterns adopted by the teacher influence the students' epistemic practices (Aleixandre & Crujeiras, 2017;Kelly, 2008Kelly, , 2016Kelly & Peter, 2018). ...
This work aims to identify teaching and learning practices in practical classes of Computer Network Technology courses, which promote the use of the Physical Laboratory (PL) as an epistemic tool to improve learning in epistemic terms. Content analysis of Multimodal Narrations (MN) of three classes by two teachers were used. An MN aggregates and organizes the data collected in the PL environment. Based on the results, we infer that the student and the teacher, under certain conditions, use the physical laboratory as an epistemic tool since the physical interactions prove its use and reuse. In addition, this study allows, in the context of work in the physical laboratory of networks, to identify that the orchestrations of mediation patterns adopted by the teacher influence the students’ epistemic practices and the use of the laboratory as a tool to produce new knowledge. The following contributions are presented: (1) The quality of the students’ epistemic practices is increased if, in the teacher’s dynamics of mediation, the control of the students’ action is reduced; (2) The orchestration of the teacher’s mediation patterns is essential to achieve beneficial results in student learning with the use of artifacts from the physical laboratory of Computer Networks; (3) For the physical laboratory to become an epistemic tool, it is necessary that the mediation standards allow students to develop epistemic practices to a high or very high degree and there is a certain mediation orchestration.
... This process, we argue, also captures what Agar's (1994;2006a) 15 conceptualized as an iterative, recursive, and nonlinear process of abductive reasoning from an anthropological perspective, a process that we undertook as we (re)engaged with the issues inscribed by Green & Bloome (1997) 13 For a discussion of the how our logic-of-inquiry relates to the nature of claims from different research traditions in education see Heap, 1995. 14 Greg Kelly has been instrumental in bringing conceptual issues in epistemology within and across tradtions in education in the Handbook of Complementary Methods in Education Research (Green, Camilli & Elmore, 2006) as well as in research in across disciplines (Kelly, Luke & Green, 2008) and science science and engineering education (Kelly, 2008a;2016a;2016b;Kelly & Licona, 2018;Cunningham & Kelly, 2017). He has also been a major contributor to directions in interactional ethnography (Kelly & Green, 2019). ...
... Additionally, by framing this distinction between anthropology of education and anthropology in education, as well as for education, Bloome et al. (2018) provide insights into what the differing logics-of-inquiry guiding these different programs of research have provided that can inform studies of teaching and learning across levels of education in classrooms, schools and community settings. These different programs of research, when view contrastively, provide a broad set of core concepts that make visible shifts in understanding of the linguistic, cultural, social and academic challenges facing students and their teachers today across levels of schooling and community settings (McCarty, 2005;2014;Markee, 2015;Green & Bridges, 2018;Kelly, 2016a;Kelly & Green, 2019, among others) In this interview, we have proposed processes for engaging in theoretical and intertextual reflexivity (Heath & Street, 2008) as well as interpersonal reflexivity central to an ethnographic perspective. In this way, we sought to introduce to readers ways of stepping back from what we/they assume is known, in order to explore the range of traditions that have the potential for informing research on language and discourse in the fields of teaching and learning children and adults in schools and universities that is at the center of the questions posed to us by the editors. ...
The question of the relationship between ethnography, discourse and education has been an area of an ongoing development for the last four decades. This paper addresses a series of questions proposed by the editors of this special issue of Calestrocópio Journal. These questions led us to a reexamination of key arguments by Shirley B. Heath, Brian V. Street and Kathryn M. Anderson-Levitt, who have influenced how ethnography can inform epistemological approaches to studying language in use in everyday settings in and out of school. In addition, we revisited the distinction between ethnography in and of education, proposed by Green and Bloome (1997), in the light of a recent reformulation focused on Anthropology in Education, of Education and for Education. This article focuses on the logic of inquiry central to understanding ethnography as epistemology
... Such engagement provides opportunities for learning engineering design, engaging in practices of engineering, using epistemic tools for learning, and fostering identity development as related to the subject matter (Cunningham & Kelly, 2017a, 2017bKelly & Cunningham, 2019;Kelly et al., 2017). This sociocultural view of learning emphasizes the importance of engaging in the social practices of a discourse community, such as those of various engineering disciplines or classroom communities (Farrell et al., 2021;Kelly, 2014bKelly, , 2016. In this way, learning occurs in social settings with the artifacts and cultural tools created by more-knowing others (Vygotsky, 1978). ...
... For example, students build connections to their lives and develop increased interest through narrative and real-world contexts (Cunningham & Higgins, 2016;Gunckel & Tolbert, 2018;Lee et al., 2019;McGowan & Bell, 2020;Wilson-Lopez et al., 2016). Diverse learners benefit from lessons designed to support sense making, where multiple solutions are encouraged (Augirre-Muñoz & Pantoya;2016;Bang et al., 2017;Blanchard et al., 2010;Brotman & Moore, 2008;Cuevas et al., 2005;Cunningham & Lachapelle, 2014;Ernst-Slavit & Pratt, 2017). In addition, use of small-group work supports alternative ways of knowing, often valued by girls and underserved minorities (Carlone et al., 2011;González-Howard, & McNeill, 2016;Lee, 2003;Olitsky et al., 2010;Wendell et al., 2019). ...
In this paper, we address the societally important issue of developing a more equitable approach to preK-12 engineering education. Our primary emphasis is on K-8 grades—a time when first impressions of engineering may be developed. Calls for increased participation by all students, including those who have been historically marginalized, motivate the need for theoretically grounded ways of developing and assessing educational programs. This paper draws from sociocultural learning theory and applies four theoretical and empirical analyses to derive design principles for equity that can inform curriculum, instruction, and assessment of preK-12 engineering education programs. We present a model for equity-oriented preK-12 engineering learning and delineate its dimensions and principles, which include socially engaged engineering, authentic engineering practices, asset-oriented pedagogies, and student engineering identity. We illustrate each with examples and discuss ways of implementing equity-oriented engineering curricula.
... Social Practice -Patterned set of actions, constituted by members of a group based on common purposes and expectations, with shared cultural values, tools, and meanings (Kelly, 2016;Kelly & Licona, 2018) Epistemic practices -Socially organized and interactionally accomplished ways that members of a group propose, justify, assess, and legitimize knowledge claims. Such practices are interactional (accomplished through social interaction), contextual (set in a setting with social norms and cultural practices) intertextual (discourses make reference to, and draw from, previous disciplinary discourses), and consequential (recognized as legitimate by an epistemic community) (Kelly, 2016). ...
... Social Practice -Patterned set of actions, constituted by members of a group based on common purposes and expectations, with shared cultural values, tools, and meanings (Kelly, 2016;Kelly & Licona, 2018) Epistemic practices -Socially organized and interactionally accomplished ways that members of a group propose, justify, assess, and legitimize knowledge claims. Such practices are interactional (accomplished through social interaction), contextual (set in a setting with social norms and cultural practices) intertextual (discourses make reference to, and draw from, previous disciplinary discourses), and consequential (recognized as legitimate by an epistemic community) (Kelly, 2016). ...
... Em aulas de ciências as interações discursivas podem contribuir para o desenvolvimento de uma linguagem de cunho mais científico, para a apropriação de práticas das ciências bem como para o desenvolvimento de práticas epistêmicas CRUJEIRAS, 2017, KELLY, 2016, SASSERON, 2020. Os aspectos epistêmicos no Ensino de Ciências baseiam-se processo de elaboração conceitual no âmbito social das salas de aula, constituindo-se em um espaço dialógico no qual os sujeitos relacionam-se, de modo que o processo de aprendizagem não é mais visto como ações de substituição de concepções prévias por conceitos científicos, mas como ações de negociação de significados em um ambiente comunicativo (MORTIMER; SCOTT, 2003). ...
... Os aspectos epistêmicos no Ensino de Ciências baseiam-se processo de elaboração conceitual no âmbito social das salas de aula, constituindo-se em um espaço dialógico no qual os sujeitos relacionam-se, de modo que o processo de aprendizagem não é mais visto como ações de substituição de concepções prévias por conceitos científicos, mas como ações de negociação de significados em um ambiente comunicativo (MORTIMER; SCOTT, 2003). O entendimento das relações epistêmicas nos processos de ensino e de aprendizagem são alvo de diversos estudos que galgam não só a melhoria dos processos por si só, mas também buscam formas de refletir e propor novas ações na construção do conhecimento CRUJEIRAS, 2017, JIMÉNEZ-ALEIXANDRE, 2008, KELLY, 2016, BACHELARD, 1996SANDOVAL, 2001;WARSCHAUER, 2001;TAKAO, 2002;KELLY, DUSCHL, 2002;SANDOVAL;MORRISON, 2003;WICKMAN, 2004;KELLY, 2005, LIDAR, LUNDQVIST, OSTMAN, 2005SILVA, 2008;SILVA et al., 2018). ...
Neste estudo, analisamos os padrões discursivos em aulas de ciências no Ensino Fundamental usando como estratégia de ensino a Roda de Conversa, na abordagem do tema “Evolução”, tendo como eixo orientador os aspectos sociais, tecnológicos e científicos da Vida de Darwin, que permitem estabelecer estratégias focadas no diálogo, no questionamento e na argumentação. Orientados pelos estudos etnográficos, acompanhamos o desenvolvimento de três Rodas de Conversa, ao longo de três semanas, com duas turmas de estudantes do 7º ano do Ensino Fundamental. Exploramos interações discursivas nesse evento, caracterizando as práticas discursivas, os movimentos e práticas epistêmicas que ocorriam no decorrer das Rodas de Conversa. Os resultados indicaram o modo pelo qual os processos de aprendizagem se constituíram mediante articulações entre tais movimentos, bem como as relações entre eles. Verificamos que nos episódios em que há predominância de abordagem comunicativa dialógica, as práticas epistêmicas que se destacam estão na instância da comunicação e avaliação do conhecimento, e os movimentos epistêmicos desenvolvidos pela professora são de reelaboração, instrução e compreensão. Por outro lado, quando buscamos as relações entre os movimentos e as práticas epistêmicas, verificamos que estas últimas, desenvolvidas pelos estudantes, têm forte relação com as ações da professora.
... Quite a few studies on the practice of knowledge construction through discursive activities in science classrooms suggested the need to examine social processes of identifying what count as knowledge in terms of data, evidence, or explanations (e.g. Duschl 2008;Jiménez-Aleixandre and Crujeiras 2017;Kelly 2016). The suggestion also included the importance of social epistemology, that is, analysing the communicative meaning-making processes in science classroom discourses. ...
... Understanding of Epistemic Process in Language Use with PEA Kelly and Licona (2017) described epistemic practices in science learning as socially organised and interactionally accomplished ways of proposing, communicating, evaluating, and legitimising knowledge claims. By the methodological consideration, Kelly (2016) argued epistemic practices are interactional in that the practices of proposing ideas, evaluating other's opinions, justifying knowledge claims, and legitimising conclusions are accomplished using language between discourse participants. Epistemic practices are also contextual in that knowledge construction practices occur in a specific situation of time, space, and cultural factors. ...
This study provides two exemplars of how grammatical analysis of language use in elementary science classroom discourse enhances the explication of students’ epistemic process in the language use in that discourse. Methodologically, both practical epistemology analysis (PEA) and discourse register analysis (DRA) from systemic functional linguistics were employed as a combinatory approach. The former was used to construe epistemic process of students’ language use and the latter was to articulate grammatical features of the language use. The exemplary analysis was administered for the discourse data collected at two elementary science classes in South Korea. The exemplars showed that ideational metafunction and its semantic relation analyses in DRA facilitated identifying gaps and relations in PEA, and interpersonal and textual metafunction analyses in DRA supported construing the flow of gap-filling or lingering process in PEA. Analysing students’ language use by PEA combined with DRA can help science teachers find the points where the language use in school science gets epistemological productivity, while it is different from the language game in science disciplines.
... So while an individual may report holding a specific epistemic belief on a survey or in an interview, they may not always act in ways that reflect these beliefs. Given these complexities associated with studying epistemic matters, recent trends among researchers call for the use of context and situation-specific approaches [4,5]. ...
... Such engagement provides opportunities for learning engineering design, engaging in practices of engineering, using epistemic tools for learning, and fostering identity development as related to the subject matter [6][7][8][9]. This sociocultural view of learning emphasizes the importance of engaging in the social practices of a discourse community, such as those of various engineering disciplines or classroom communities [10][11][12]. In this way, learning occurs in social settings with the artifacts and cultural tools created by more-knowing-others [13]. ...
... The focus on the latter (models for), helps students understand the epistemic functions of the models. These epistemic functions help students understand how scientists develop, evaluate, and represent evidence through their models [28]. Researchers argue that shifts such as these (where students collectively work towards epistemic goals) require an immense amount of instructional support [29], and teachers need support to learn to scaffold these instructional environments [30]. ...
Engaging students in epistemic and conceptual aspects of modeling practices is crucial for phenomena-based learning in science classrooms. However, many students and teachers still struggle to actualize the reformed vision of the modeling practice in their classrooms. Through a discourse analysis of 150 students’ explanatory models (as social semiotic spaces) from 14 classes, we propose a qualitative framework that investigates conceptual coherence and epistemic discourses to achieve a gapless explanation of scientific phenomena. Our framework draws attention to four critical components of students’ explanatory models: (a) key ideas based on evidence, (b) the discourse modalities of how evidence is presented, (c) scientific representations from the cultures of scientific disciplines, (d) systems thinking approaches directly and indirectly related to oceans and marine ecosystems. Our results indicate that students struggled to construct cohesive explanatory models that communicated all key ideas and the relationships among them, with the majority of student-developed models in our study categorized as ‘insufficiently’ cohesive (lacking key ideas and the relationships among them), and only a small percentage of the models considered ‘extensively’ cohesive (all key ideas attended to, as well as the relationships among them).
... First, engagement in disciplinary practices relevant to knowledge claims entails a shift of the epistemic subject from that of the lone observer to a collective with common vocabulary (ontology) and ways of being, doing, and speaking. Understanding the ways that epistemic cultures construct, communicate, assess, and legitimate knowledge requires careful consideration of the discourse practices of the relevant community (Kelly, 2016). Second, disciplinary practices and competencies are framed, taken up, and transformed through discourse. ...
... Students should be given opportunities and shared epistemic authority (with the teacher) to negotiate the criteria for evaluating the 'goodness' of a STEM product or solution (including those generated by themselves or their peers), as well as to engage in peer critiquing to evaluate the product or solution (e.g. by weighing its trade-offs) and/or to determine the 'best' product or solution. Through engaging in such epistemic practices, students learn how knowledge claims (embedded in STEM products and solutions) are proposed, communicated, assessed, and legitimized within a community, which is as important as the final form of knowledge itself (Ford, 2010;Kelly, 2016). ...
Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) form the basis of many educational programmes around the world. In Singapore, school-based STEM education appears within STEM Applied Learning Programmes (ALP) offered by some primary and secondary schools. In this chapter, we present an in-depth survey of the diverse offerings and benefits of STEM education here; specifically, we examine STEM learning/activities from the websites of 15 secondary schools (Grades 7–10/11). Using a theoretical model of relevance for science education from the literature, we identified the benefits and pathways that STEM education has been reported to afford its participants, that is, how STEM education can be made relevant for students through ALP. Relevance is defined in terms of fulfilment of intrinsic or extrinsic needs in the present or future, and along the three dimensions of individual, societal, and vocational needs in this model. Our main findings indicate that this sample of STEM ALP websites did not sufficiently yield statements that supported the present or future aspects of intrinsic relevance within the societal and vocational dimensions. On the other hand, multiple descriptions in relation to the extrinsic and future aspects across the individual, societal, and vocational dimensions of relevance were provided. Three implications of these findings for STEM education in Singapore are highlighted: (i) greater consideration of student choices, identities, and agency, (ii) greater awareness and discussion of undesirable/negative impacts of STEM solutions on society, and (iii) greater emphasis on the epistemic aspects of STEM.KeywordsRelevance of scienceSTEM educationContent analysisSingapore
... Así, se han desarrollado investigaciones sobre la salud, la dieta, la ecología, el modelo socioeconómico, el uso de los recursos, las características biológicas de los animales, del territorio o las prácticas ganaderas. Este planteamiento encaja en lo que Kelly (2016) denomina una purposeful activity situando al futuro profesorado en un ambiente de aprendizaje bajo la construcción social del conocimiento científico, en lugar de ofrecer una mera actividad de tipo experimental (la actividad de indagación tiene un fin último: se debe tomar una decisión fundamentada). ...
Sin duda, la compleja situación socioambiental actual requiere de una cultura científica que proporcione a la ciudadanía herramientas para intervenir en su realidad. En el contexto de la formación del profesorado, esto toma mayor relevancia si entendemos la educación como motor transformador de una sociedad. Así, presentamos una investigación basada en el diseño y desarrollo de una propuesta didáctica para el aprendizaje de la construcción del conocimiento científico y su construcción social, en el contexto de una problemática socioambiental sobre la que deben emitir un juicio: la ganadería intensiva. El tratamiento multidisciplinar de dicha problemática nos permite, primeramente, presentar la red de problemas y contenido que se han prestado a investigación y, seguidamente, conocer el grado de aprendizaje de los principales rasgos de la metodología investigativa. Se han analizado los 12 proyectos de investigación elaborados por un grupo de estudiantes del Grado en Educación Primaria.
... Epistemic practices is Kelly's (2016) term for epistemically-revealing behaviours which can be observed and captured in order to characterise how a person approaches, justifies, and evaluates scientific knowledge within a given context. ...
Solving complex, open-ended problems is frequently characterised as the central activity of engineering. Such problem solving requires a high level of epistemic sophistication, however, few studies have investigated the relationship between epistemic cognition and engineering students’ problem solving strategies. While there are several models of epistemic cognition, they consistently characterise approaching knowledge as though there is a single, absolute correct answer as naïve. Higher epistemic sophistication is taken to involve more nuanced beliefs such as perceiving knowledge as relative, contingent, and contextual. However, decades of active research have failed to produce robust quantitative instruments. This thesis exploits a recent conceptual development which posits that selecting an effective epistemic approach for a specific knowledge claim is a better measure of sophistication. By focusing on observable, fine-grained actions to characterise how engineering students approach, justify, and evaluate contexualised scientific knowledge, this study eschews overarching epistemic beliefs in favour of epistemic practices to develop a rich portrait of engineering problem solving. The grounded theory analysis of the think-aloud problem solving protocols and interviews with 30 undergraduate engineering students produced a set of eight epistemic practices, each of which are described at four levels of sophistication. While the strict separation between epistemic beliefs and actions is distinctive of this project, five of the epistemic practices are coherent with prior models and three are novel and engineering-specific: equations as imperfect models of reality, precision and estimates, and answer‐checking strategies. Finally, this study proposes the diversity of students’ epistemic practices as a measure of epistemic sophistication, rather than effectiveness. Diversity has the dual benefits of being reflective of expert problem solving and attenuating the effects of students’ prior knowledge, disciplinary background, and the specific activity. The epistemic practices are presented as a coherent framework that is accessible to engineering teachers and facilitates application in other contexts.
... En este sentido, uno de los aportes significativos de la presente investigación radica en la unificación de todas estas categorías que habían sido investigadas de manera aislada y, por lo tanto, perdieron de vista la complejidad de este fenómeno (Kelly, 2016). Así pues, se ha planteado un marco de referencias ampliado acerca de la cognición epistémica, buscando describir cada categoría de manera contextualizada. ...
Vivimos en una sociedad donde podemos acceder a múltiples documentos presionando sólo un botón. Este es un escenario epistémico complejo, ya que, así como podemos beneficiarnos de este fenómeno logrando aprendizajes profundos mediante la comprensión de múltiples documentos, también debemos reconocer que muchos de ellos son de mala calidad. En este sentido, la cognición epistémica aparece como un aspecto del desarrollo cognitivo, afectivo-motivacional y ético que orienta el pensamiento de las personas. En este estudio de carácter descriptivo-exploratorio, se identifican categorías y dimensiones de la cognición epistémica en un grupo de estudiantes y se describen en función de una actividad relacionada con la comprensión de múltiples documentos.
... 99). Epistemic practices have also been characterized as interactional, contextual, intertextual, and consequential [3], [17]. In K-12 classrooms, as students engage in epistemic practices, they continually shape their knowledge-building and problem-solving experiences. ...
... This research decision was based on the following reasons. First, science education researchers have argued that epistemic cognition plays an important role in scientists' evaluation of the validity and accuracy of scientific products such as models and arguments (Kelly 2016;Longino 2002). Because the process of solving an ill-structured problem involves making judgements about arguments and evidence, evaluating information from inconsistent and imperfect data sources, and developing and arguing for a reasonable solution, we draw some similarities between the process of solving ill-structured problems and making judgements among multiple competing models. ...
The aim of the study was to investigate students’ views of model evaluation through the lens of personal epistemology. We developed an integrated analytical framework by combining a developmental framework, including absolutist, multiplist, and evaluatist, with a multi-dimensional framework, including limits of knowing, certainty of knowing, and criteria of knowing. Furthermore, we examined the potential influence of the question contexts and the students’ grade levels. A total of 188 secondary school students were surveyed. Students answered two sets of model evaluation questions based on two scientific contexts. After reading the information about the two models, the students had to choose from three epistemic assumptions and then provide written justifications explaining their choice of assumptions. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted for the multiple-choice questions and the written responses. In both contexts there were higher percentages of 11th-grade students choosing the evaluatist assumptions than the eighth-grade students. For students choosing multiplist and evaluatist assumptions, the 11th-grade students were more likely than the eighth-grade students to think in terms of pragmatic and evidential criteria as the criteria of knowing . Different contexts of the questions evoked different views of model evaluation particularly regarding the limits of knowing . Four additional categories of epistemic levels also emerged from the data. This study provides a new framework for understanding students’ thinking about model evaluation. Implications and suggestions for future research are provided.
... Estes processos argumentativos de comunicação, proposição, avaliação e legitimação das ideias permitem o entendimento da linguagem científica como uma prática epistêmica das ciências (JIMÉNEZ-ALEIXANDRE & CRUJEIRAS, 2017, KELLY, 2016 que acompanha e pode se desenvolver conjuntamente à investigação e à construção de modelos explicativos. ...
RESUMO: Considerando que as interações discursivas em aulas de ciências permitem a promoção de um ambiente dialógico e que a argumentação tem sido um foco de estudo da área de ensino de ciências, neste texto, pretendemos explorar como argumentos são discutidos em aulas em que a abordagem didática são as interações discursivas. A discussão teórica que fundamenta este estudo também nos ajuda a analisar os dados. Este estudo de caso tem viés qualitativo para a análise de situações de ensino de ciências. Apresentamos um modo de organizar as informações provenientes das interações discursivas para mostrar como as ideias em debate transformam-se em argumentos. Entendemos que este estudo pode contribuir para a pesquisa em ensino de ciências apresentando um modo de análise para a construção dos argumentos que, ao mesmo tempo em que pontua as contribuições de cada sujeito, revela transformações pelas quais estas vão passando até configurarem-se em alegações, evidências ou justificativas de um argumento. Palavras-chave: Interações discursivas. Argumentação. Ensino Fundamental. Práticas Epistêmicas. INTERACCIONES DISCURSIVAS Y ARGUMENTACIÓN EN CLASE: LA CONSTRUCCIÓN DE CONCLUSIONES, EVIDENCIAS Y RACIOCINIOS RESUMEN: Considerando que las interacciones discursivas en clases de ciencias permiten el fomento de un ambiente dialógico y que la argumentación es un foco de estudio del área de enseñanza de ciencias, en este texto, pretendemos explorar como se discuten argumentos en clases en las cuales el enfoque didáctico son las interacciones
... These principles are grounded in and adapted from Heath and Street (2008) linguistic/social anthropological perspectives on ethnography, and Agar (2006) view of culture as a verb (see Green and Bridges 2018): These principles of conduct constitute an orienting set of goals for the IE study reported here. They also serve to make visible a social constructionist as well as a sociocultural approach to the study of social, cultural, and linguistic phenomena that shape, and are shaped by what participants in particular learning environments count as learning and knowledge (see Fairclough 1992;Heap 1991;Kelly 2016). Given the focus on medical learning opportunities and processes at the center of this study, this work also draws on two foundational research volumes by Mishler (1984) and McClelland and Sands (2001). ...
Problem-based learning (PBL) designs are addressing the demands and potentials of an information-saturated era where accessing inquiry resources and new information is reconfiguring tutor-facilitated dialogues. Unclear is how incorporation of CSCL tools and the rich digital multimodal resources they collaboratively access and generate are re-shaping the traditional problem-based cycle of inquiry and intersubjective sense-making. This study in higher education adopts Interactional Ethnography (IE) as a logic-of-inquiry to examine how a group of medical undergraduate students and their facilitator (n = 12) collaborated to access, review, appropriate and devise multimodal digital and visual texts within and across one problem cycle (three face-to-face tutorials and self-directed learning). Drawing on concepts of ‘multimodality’ and ‘intervisuality’ from literacy theory, we extend theoretical understandings of how multimodal texts become actors within a developing PBL event, not just objects of study or cultural tools. Through this multi-focal approach, we make visible how what occurs at one point in time with these texts in the developing dialogic space is consequential for what students can and do undertake in subsequent engagements with such texts in and across one bounded cycle of learning activities. Arising from this analysis, we propose the concept of dialogic intervisualizing to characterize the dynamic interplay between and among information problem-solving processes, textual negotiations and purposeful, facilitated dialogue for deep knowledge co-construction within and across collaborative, computer supported learning activity in an inquiry cycle.
... This paper is framed in the fourth approach, focusing on how participants use epistemic knowledge involved in scientific inquiry for assessing the quality of a scientific investigation about friction force. However, as Kelly (2016) points out, 'To date much of the work on epistemic cognition has focused on researching the individual's view of knowing and the influence of such views on learning (epistemic beliefs)'. He proposes examining the ways students engage in disciplinary practices and considering how issues of knowing emerge through discourse processes, as an alternative to epistemic beliefs. ...
This paper analyses the epistemic criteria that pre-service teachers consider when assessing the quality of a scientific investigation about friction force. The participants were 71 pre-service primary teachers working in 18 small groups of three or four participants (N = 18), who were enrolled in a science teaching methods course that addressed inquiry, nature of science and epistemology. They had no previous experience in planning scientific investigations and assessing. In the context of studying speed, the task consisted of investigating which material, among cardboard, plastic, cork or lacquered wood, would be the most appropriate to build a racetrack for toy cars. For data analysis, students’ written products related to planning, carrying out and assessing the investigation were collected. The main findings highlighted a great number of criteria provided by the small groups for assessing the quality of the investigation, but little use of them in the assessments. Implications for promoting epistemic knowledge in inquiry environments are discussed.
... Considering scientists' epistemic practices, scientific communities' main goal is to build sound scientific knowledge claims to explain natural phenomena (Driver, Asoko, Leach, Scott, & Mortimer, 1994). Science studies literature suggests this goal is achieved via epistemic practices of proposing, communicating, evaluating, and legitimizing knowledge claims (Kelly, 2016). Constructing claims (i.e., proposing and communicating claims) and critiquing or evaluating claims are both essential epistemic practices for knowledge building. ...
Scientific argumentation has been an actively researched topic for almost 30 years. Predominant school science argumentation interventions focus on students constructing arguments using a component’s template to produce good scientific arguments. In recent years, researchers have called for a shift toward interpreting argumentation as an epistemic practice comprising critique in addition to the construction of scientific claims. This chapter presents a study that looked at argumentation through a different lens—the epistemic practice approach to argumentation—that emphasizes students’ critique of others’ epistemic products (e.g., a science poster) as the trajectory for developing students’ critical stance in argumentation. The study took place in a Singapore secondary school’s inquiry course. Student-teacher discourse during a science research poster critique activity is examined between groups in two learning environments: student-centered critique (Class A) versus teacher-centered critique (Class B). Prior to the poster critique activity, Class A students experienced student-centered critique instruction and practiced critiquing literature using scientific soundness criteria (SSC). Class B students experienced teacher-centered critique instruction whereby the teacher proposed ideas for students’ inquiry project, students reviewed literature by summarizing, and the teacher critiqued students’ review. Findings on groups’ productive disciplinary engagement in critique and construction (PDE-CC) practices and incorporation of PDE-CC guiding principles—problematizing, resources, disciplinary accountability, and epistemic authority—suggest the alternative approach of developing students’ critical stance via engagement in critique practices using critique criteria is a promising approach to improve critique practices in the science classroom.
... Considering scientists' epistemic practices, scientific communities' main goal is to build sound scientific knowledge claims to explain natural phenomena (Driver, Asoko, Leach, Scott, & Mortimer, 1994). Science studies literature suggests this goal is achieved via epistemic practices of proposing, communicating, evaluating, and legitimizing knowledge claims (Kelly, 2016). Constructing claims (i.e., proposing and communicating claims) and critiquing or evaluating claims are both essential epistemic practices for knowledge building. ...
Past studies suggested writing incorporated with multiple modes of representations (MMR) were able to reduce students’ misconceptions and teaching using technological tools can promote the use of MMR in presenting the answers in open-ended tests. As such, in this study, a writing-to-learn (WTL) activities integrated with graphic organizers using the “Popplet” application was used to teach transition elements. Following the teaching, the degree of MMR embeddedness in the open-ended tests was measured. For this purpose, mixed method design was used to identify the ability of 81 pre-university students in embedding MMR.
... There is existing research that has effectively addressed epistemic themes empirically (e.g. Kelly 2016). What can we learn from such bodies of literature to improve the use of HPS in science education research? ...
... Such exemplars need to capture the complexity and situatedness of teachers' epistemic practices, as the nature of one context can encourage one particular way of thinking, and not another (Chinn & Rinehart, 2016). As a result, Kelly (2016) called for examining epistemic practices "in situ" or "in settings where issues of knowing are at stake and in play" (p. 394). ...
Assessment tasks require the coordination of multiple knowledge-related goals for various audiences, and therefore provide an authentic context to observe teachers’ epistemic cognition in practice. In this instrumental case study, we investigated seven, fifth grade English Language Arts teachers’ epistemic cognition as they evaluated students’ classroom assessments. Our analyses revealed that the components of epistemic cognition identified in the literature emerged in these teachers’ assessment processes. Moreover, we found evidence that teachers’ epistemic cognition was iterative and nuanced, and required shifts in aims and reliable processes. This resulted in teachers forming new kinds of “epistemic matters” and questions beyond those ideas noted in existing models of epistemic cognition. Significance and implications are discussed.
... As such, there exist inevitable connections between epistemic cognition, scientific knowing, and scientific practice. Developing epistemic cognition can not only help individuals obtain access to participation in scientific practice, but can also help them to develop their understanding of what scientific knowing is, and how to determine the reasonableness and credibility of scientific knowledge (Kelly 2016). During scientific practice, individuals constantly evaluate and reflect on the process of the practice itself in order to extract ideas about the most appropriate and effective way to enact the practice, thereafter converting this into their own epistemic cognition about how to establish, confirm, and legalize scientific knowledge (Lehrer and Schauble 2006). ...
Scientific argumentation is a key practice in the construction, confirmation, and legalization of scientific knowledge. Although studies on scientific argumentation have been relatively plentiful, there are few quantitative studies on how students mentally perceive scientific argumentation, given that traditional quantitative tools such as Likert scales are usually decontextualized or applied in unrealistic situations. In light of this limitation in educational research, the following research question was formulated: how do contextual factors, added in to quantitative scales, influence the large-scale assessment (assessment involving complex statistical methods) of students’ epistemic cognition of scientific argument (ECSA)? The current study engaged with this research question by developing a large-scale assessment tool for students’ ECSA. After establishing the ECSA framework based on Toulmin’s argument pattern, and designing the questionnaire by combining two authentic contexts (“the selection of cable material” and “the necessity of adding tax on petrol to reduce global warming”), the tool was examined and modified through interviews and a Rasch model analysis. The instrument was then applied in a large-scale assessment of high school students’ ECSA. The results indicate two possible ways in which context influences students’ ECSA—creating differences directly and amplifying possible pre-existing differences. The results pointed to the complexity of context in the development and application of large-scale epistemic cognition assessments, with the key implications that context affects the building of epistemic cognition framework and the interpretation of the results.
... We can conclude how well students have adapted to the situation in this phase, as they reveal how they understand their limitations and ability to solve the problem. It has been stated that the learning situation determines which epistemic beliefs are most conducive to learning as well as how the epistemic practices are expressed (Bråten et al., 2008;Kelly, 2016). Thus being adaptive to the situation (i.e., adaptive epistemic cognition) is therefore a feature of whether their epistemic beliefs are productive or, in other words, if their epistemic practices are successful in the specific situation (Elby et al., 2016). ...
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.
... Mortimer & Scott, 2003). Student learning can be scaffolded with psychological tools and curricular materials to provide opportunities for students to engage in science and engineering (Kelly, 2016;Kozulin, 2003;Reveles, Kelly, & Durán, 2007). Central to this sociocultural view is the importance of participating in a discourse community. ...
The Framework for K‐12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards propose that students learn core ideas and practices related to engineering as well as science. To do so, students will need high‐quality curricular materials designed to meet these goals. We report an efficacy study of an elementary engineering curriculum, Engineering is Elementary (EiE) that includes a set of hypothesized critical components designed to encourage student engagement in practices, connect engineering and science learning, and reach diverse students. To measure the impact of the curriculum, we conducted a cluster randomized controlled trial in 604 classrooms in 152 schools in three states. Schools were randomly assigned to either the treatment curriculum or to a comparison curriculum that addressed the same learning goals but did not include several critical components. Results show that students who used the treatment curriculum (EiE) regardless of demographic characteristics outperformed students in the comparison group on outcome measures of both engineering and science content learning. The results show that curriculum design affects student‐learning outcomes.
Nordgren explores a complementary path to teachers’ epistemic cognition that goes beyond the predominant focus on individual thinking. Based on a longitudinal project that follows teachers engaged in planning in subject-based teams, this chapter focuses on how teachers’ epistemic beliefs evolve in the act of pedagogical recontextualization. Methodologically, the collegial setting allows real-time access to teachers’ negotiations and decisions about content, learning goals, sequencing, and adjustments to students’ needs, without the filters of questionnaires and interviews. Theoretically, the findings problematize the analytical use of categorical epistemic stances and the separation of epistemic from non-epistemic objectives within teachers’ epistemic beliefs. Nordgren thus shows how history teachers’ planning takes place within an intricate web of epistemic choices regarding ontological assumptions, classroom management, and almost everything in between.
Alongside an overview of knowledge in research-based practice, this chapter integrates a case study of doctoral education. The summation of the two provides an insight into how processes of perspective transformation can be integrated into the skills development of critical reflection and reflexivity, which characterise formative assessment and feedback in doctoral education. This is framed by interactive dialogue with module facilitators and serves to develop doctoral researcher capacity and capability in acknowledging researcher positionality in question-led research. Integrating perspective transformation both encourages and supports the theoretical underpinning of research design and methodology and permits delineation of epistemic, metacognitive, and cognitive approaches as interdependent lenses. The case study provides an opportunity to debate the concepts of personal and professional identity within doctoral research and uses formative assessment and feedback as the vehicle through which robust methodological design can be driven.
The 21st century has seen the emergent need for continuing professional development (CPD) within the health and medical professions to address not only the individual needs of clinicians to ensure their knowledge is current but that it serves a greater collective purpose in relation to the healthcare workforce. From a theoretical perspective, seminal epistemological theories of learning remain unchanged, but the challenge of how best to facilitate disciplinary experts in remaining motivated and passionate about learning opportunities amidst the pressures of their daily workloads remains an issue for address. This chapter provides an insight into contemporary approaches to CPD within the context of applied praxis.
This chapter provides a theoretical insight into the nature of continuing professional development within the health and medical professions. Ensuring the critical relevance and meaningful nature of CPD for clinical practitioners and the assessment mechanisms used to assess its effectiveness remains challenging in terms of how to engage professionals with timely, relevant, and tailored CPD content. The philosophical basis of constructivism is used to provide a theoretical lens through which knowledge construction and application can be integrated into the lifelong learning of post-qualifying members of the workforce.
Being able to operationalize the concepts of inclusion and diversity is now an integral part of change integration and management in UK higher education institutes. With emphasis on the societal impact of education as well as its role in ensuring optimal employability and widening participation for first generation graduates, being able to co-construct academic curricula is now regarded as a desirable norm. Being able to also enhance the concept of student agency also moves co-constructive approaches to curriculum development beyond merely a tokenistic gesture in the uncertain contextual backdrop of politics, culture, and the dynamics of constant change. This chapter provides an insight into curriculum design as an overall holistic structure and a mechanism of extending the context of academic praxis into the social world. The chapter posits the idea that curricula can be a strategic lens through which students' active participation and co-creation can be illuminated and further extended.
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) have spurred renewed interest in the epistemologies that students adopt as they engage in science practices. One framework for characterizing students' epistemologies is the epistemologies in practice framework (Berland et al. (2016), Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 53(7), 1082–1112), which focuses on students' meaningful use of four epistemic considerations: Nature, Generality, Justification, and Audience. To date, research based on the framework has primarily examined students' use of the epistemic considerations in the context of diagrammatic modeling. However, with computational technologies becoming more prevalent in science classrooms, the framework could be applied to investigate students' engagement in computational modeling. Moreover, computational modeling could be particularly beneficial to a fast‐growing population of multilingual learners (MLs) in the U.S. K‐12 context, who benefit from leveraging multiple meaning‐making resources (e.g., code, dynamic visualization). This study examined MLs' meaningful use of four epistemic considerations in the context of computational modeling in an elementary science classroom. Fifth‐grade MLs (N = 11) participated in two interviews about computational models they had developed as part of two NGSS‐designed instructional units that integrated computational modeling (in addition to other model types). Findings indicated that, while students used all four epistemic considerations across the interviews, some considerations (Nature and Generality) were used more frequently than others (Justification and Audience). Beyond diagrammatic modeling, computational modeling offered unique affordances for MLs to meaningfully use the considerations as well as to communicate this use, though not without some emergent challenges. Overall, this study highlights the promise of computational modeling for providing a rich sense‐making and meaning‐making context for MLs to use epistemic considerations. The study also highlights the importance of attending to both epistemic and linguistic aspects of MLs' science learning as well as the potential of interdisciplinary research for studying this learning.
This paper addresses the subject of the semiosis process in the transactions between teachers and students about the knowledge at stake in science education. We present a conceptualisation of these transactions as a joint action between students and teachers. This conceptualisation enables us to understand the semiosis process as it unfolds during teaching–learning situations as the semiosis of both the didactic contract and the didactic milieu. We analyse this semiosis in a case study of earth science education at 5th grade, which comprised two subsequent teaching sessions delivered by the same teacher. Our results give an account of the contract–milieu semiosis under the description of different semiotic modes (speech, gestures, stance, gaze, writings, modellings and proxemics). We also define the generic and specific dimensions of semiosis in relation to the knowledge at stake. Finally, we evaluate the relevance of the teaching practice we observed in terms of its staging of a relationship between the semiosis of didactic contracts and didactic milieus.
This work can be situated in the Joint Action Theory in Didactics theoretical and methodological framework (Sensevy, 2011; Santini, et al., 2018) and within the practice turn line of research on epistemic practices in science education. This paper investigates classroom practice seeking to achieve the concurrent learning of English as a foreign language together with disciplinary knowledge of physics as a practice. Classroom life is analyzed closely in order to identify traces of effective learning through epistemic practices (Santini, et al., 2018; Kelly, 2011) in both foreign language proficiency and discipline learning (Cunningham & Kelly, 2017; Cunningham et al., 2020). Founded on a Wittgensteinian concept of language, the notions of thought style and jargon are posited as useful notions to identify the epistemic value of classroom activity. This is in relation to the epistemic potential inherent in the situations presented in class, as well as the culturally-constructed body of knowledge pertaining to the epistemic potential at stake. The modelling of classroom activity in this research rendered visible aspects of classroom practice which were essential to understanding the progression of knowledge objectives in situ, as well as the epistemic value of an actor’s move in relation to the epistemic potential of a given context. The study concludes by positing the notions as efficient tools for both the analysis and design of learning environments, in particular for environments where language can be seen to be organically linked to the practice in which it is embedded (Collins, 2011; Sensevy et al., 2019).
Full text: https://rdcu.be/cFwxP
The present dissertation seeks to explore potentialities of argumentation, based on Toulmin´s
argument pattern (TOULMIN, 2006) on the study of territory (SANTOS, 2006; TAMAYO,
2011) as a concept in Geography classes oriented to the last grades of elementary school. For
this purpose, a didactic sequence that includes problem solution of the city was built and
applied. Argumentation process and written production of last grade students of elementary
school were analyzed during the resolution of a city habitation problem. Advantages of
working with argumentation in Geography teaching for conceptual as well as geographic
reasoning learning (ROQUE ASCENÇÃO; VALADÃO, 2014; 2017) were observed.
Elements that can compose geographic argument were identified.
The unique breed of particle physicists constitutes a community of sophisticated mythmakers--explicators of the nature of matter who forever alter our views of space and time. But who are these people? What is their world really like? Sharon Traweek, a bold and original observer of culture, opens the door to this unusual domain and offers us a glimpse into the inner sanctum. http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674063488
This 2003 book comprehensively covers all major topics of Vygotskian educational theory and its classroom applications. Particular attention is paid to the Vygotskian idea of child development as a consequence rather than premise of learning experiences. Such a reversal allows for new interpretations of the relationships between cognitive development and education at different junctions of the human life span. It also opens new perspectives on atypical development, learning disabilities, and assessment of children's learning potential. Classroom applications of Vygotskian theory are discussed in the book. Teacher training and the changing role of a teacher in a sociocultural classroom is discussed in addition to the issues of teaching and learning activities and peer interactions. Relevant research findings from the US, Western Europe, and Russia are brought together to clarify the possible new applications of Vygotskian ideas in different disciplinary areas.
Intertextuality forms one of the crucial grounds for writing studies and writing practice. Texts do not appear in isolation, but in relation to other texts. We write in response to prior writing, and as writers we use the resources provided by prior writers. When we read we use knowledge and experience from texts we have read before to make sense of the new text, and as readers we notice the texts the writer invokes directly and indirectly. Our reading and writing are in dialogue with each other as we write in direct and indirect response to what we have read before, and we read in relation to the ideas we have articulated in our own writing. Understanding how we use intertextuality as writers and readers can improve our practice as individuals and as collectives. Our writing can be more sure-footed as we notice the intertextual ground we stand on. We can become more deft and precise in invoking texts that we want the reader to see as relevant context and in excluding those intertexts that might distract the readers from the vision we want to present. As readers we can note more exactly those intertexts the writer is invoking, and how and for what purposes. Further, we can also decide as readers if we want to bring other texts to bear to the issue that the writer has not seen as relevant.
Focusing on a range of features that are central to the constitution of action, this article is an empirically based theoretical contribution to the field of research attempting to understand how human sociality is established and sustained. Human action is intensely, perhaps uniquely, co-operative. Individual actions are constructed by assembling diverse materials, including language structure, prosody, and visible embodied displays. Semiotically charged objects, such as maps, when included within local action, incorporate ways of knowing and acting upon the world that have been inherited from predecessors. New action is built by performing systematic, selective operations on these public configurations of resources. The way in which a single action encompasses different kinds of resources makes possible 1) distinctive forms of co-operative social organization as alternatively positioned actors contribute different kinds of structure to a single shared action (e.g. the talk of a speaker and the silent visible displays of hearer work together to construct a turn-at-talk and the utterance emerging within it); and 2) the accumulation and differentiation through time within local co-operative transformation zones of dense substrates that create a multiplicity of settings for action. Each setting for action must be inhabited by competent members who have mastered the culturally specific practices required to perform the activities that animate the lifeworld of a particular community. Through the progressive development of, and apprenticeship within, diverse epistemic ecologies, communities invest their members with the resources required to understand each other in just the ways that make possible the accomplishment of ongoing, situated action. Human beings inhabit each other’s actions.
The aim of this study was to assess whether and how a sustained instructional focus on argumentation might improve children's understanding and application of key epistemic criteria for scientific arguments. These criteria include the articulation of clear, coherent causal claims, and the explicit justification of such claims with appropriate evidence. We show a mixed-age class of 8–10-year-old children improved in their ability to both construct and evaluate arguments, especially in the ways they met evidentiary criteria. We locate these improvements in their classroom's development of a number of norms for “good arguments'' that focused on evidentiary standards. We summarize how students' appropriation of specific norms around showing evidence and justifying evidentiary relations produced these outcomes. We frame these findings in terms of their implications for promoting argumentation in classrooms, children's capacities for engaging in such argumentation, and in relation to the development of informed views about the nature of professional science. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 96:488–526, 2012
This paper investigates ways students engage in scientific reasoning practices through the formulation of written argument. Through textual analysis of university students' scientific writing we examined how general theoretical claims are tied to specific data in constructing evidence. The student writers attended a writing-intensive university oceanography course that required them to write a technical paper drawing from multiple interactive geological data sets concerning plate tectonics. Two papers, chosen as exemplary by the course instructor, were analysed in three ways: First, genre analysis was applied to identify the rhetorical moves used by the authors to complete the academic task. Second, a previously developed model of epistemic generality was used to uncover the relationships of theoretical assertions and empirical data. Third, an analysis of lexical cohesion mapped the recurrence and relationships of topics throughout the student papers. These analyses identified ways that the students engaged with the genre (as defined within the activity system of the course): the successful student authors were shown to adjust the epistemic level of their claims to accomplish different rhetorical goals, build theoretical arguments upon site specific data, method, introduce key concepts that served as anchors for subsequent conceptual development, and tie multiple strands of empirical data to central constructs through aggregating sentences. Educational applications are discussed.
Psychological and educational researchers have developed a flourishing research program on epistemological dimensions of cognition (epistemic cognition). Contemporary philosophers investigate many epistemological topics that are highly relevant to this program but that have not featured in research on epistemic cognition. We argue that integrating these topics into psychological models of epistemic cognition is likely to improve the explanatory and predictive power of these models. We thus propose and explicate a philosophically grounded framework for epistemic cognition that includes five components: (a) epistemic aims and epistemic value; (b) the structure of knowledge and other epistemic achievements; (c) the sources and justification of knowledge and other epistemic achievements, and the related epistemic stances; (d) epistemic virtues and vices; and (e) reliable and unreliable processes for achieving epistemic aims. We further argue for a fine-grained, context-specific analysis of cognitions within the five components.
outline its [science's] distinctive social attributes, its research agenda—what sociologists of science study and why—and . . . indicate how work in the specialty ties in with sociological research more generally
problems in the social structure and culture of science
sociology of scientific knowledge (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This study investigated children's judgments of the epistemic status of justifications for causal claims. Twenty-six children (14 boys, 12 girls) between the ages of 8 and 10 were asked to help two story characters choose the “best reason” for believing a claim. The reasons included appeals to an authority, to a plausible causal mechanism, or to data. Authority and plausible mechanism justifications always supported the claim and were paired with data that either covaried in support of the claim or did not covary and so were ambiguous with respect to the claim. Most children appeared to have a loose ordering of the epistemic status of justifications with data being preferred, plausible mechanisms appealing and preferred to ambiguous data, and appeals to authority least preferable. The children's primary reason for preferring any justification was its credibility. The credibility of data, to these children, seemed to rest on its firsthand nature. We suggest that this preference for data is productive and that instructional attention can usefully be focused on the attributes of measurement and experimentation that make data credible. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed95: 383–408, 2011
The introduction of engineering in K-12 education in the United States offers new potential and challenges for schools interested in teaching engineering in the elementary grades. This study examines how a teacher frames engineering practices for her students through the teaching of an Engineering is Elementary (EiE) instructional unit.
Discourse analysis of conduct was undertaken based on a set of classroom videos and artifacts. The method entails detailed analysis of the talk and actions of classroom members. Codes were developed to characterize the work on framing and engaging in engineering practices. Drawing from the materials provided in the curriculum, the teacher in this classroom used a set of discourse moves (e.g., posing questions, revoicing student responses, giving directions) to frame aerospace engineering as a field that is dedicated to principled uses of data to support design. This was accomplished by modeling ways of collecting data, controlling variables, and treating anomalies. Classroom activities in support of data use included analysis of science concepts and engineering designs, sharing within and across groups for collective decision making, and comparing data to draw inferences for engineering redesign. The teacher in this study was able to provide learning opportunities in this fourth-grade classroom by developing common foci around science concepts and engineering processes, holding students accountable to common standards of quality in engineering work, and encouraging students to develop agency as engineers.
Learning theories presuppose views about knowledge. Different learning theories in science rely on, and draw from, various epistemological perspectives. In this chapter, we will examine the relationship between learning and epistemology in science education. We consider the ways that history, philosophy, and sociology of science have informed learning theory (disciplinary perspective), ways that students’ personal epistemologies influence learning (personal ways of knowing), and emerging studies of practical epistemologies that consider ways that disciplinary practices are enacted interactionally in learning contexts (social practices perspective). We consider how conceptions of knowledge are operationalized in science learning research across these perspectives and draw implications for research in science education.
The authors present a social linguistic/social interactional approach to the discourse analysis of classroom language and literacy events. Building on recent theories in interactional sociolinguistics, literary theory, social anthropology, critical discourse analysis, and the New Literacy Studies, they describe a microethnographic approach to discourse analysis that provides a reflexive and recursive research process that continually questions what counts as knowledge in and of the interactions among teachers and students. The approach combines attention to how people use language and other systems of communication in constructing classroom events with attention to social, cultural, and political processes. The focus of attention is on actual people acting and reacting to each other, creating and recreating the worlds in which they live. One contribution of the microethnographic approach is to highlight the conception of people as complex, multi-dimensional actors who together use what is given by culture, language, social, and economic capital to create new meanings, social relationships and possibilities, and to recreate culture and language. The approach presented by the authors does not separate methodological, theoretical, and epistemological issues. Instead, they argue that research always involves a dialectical relationship among the object of the research, the theoretical frameworks and methodologies driving the research, and the situations within which the research is being conducted. Discourse Analysis and the Study of Classroom Language and Literacy Events: A Microethnographic Perspective: introduces key constructs and the intellectual and disciplinary foundations of the microethnographic approach; addresses the use of this approach to gain insight into three often discussed issues in research on classroom literacy events--classroom literacy events as cultural action, the social construction of identity, and power relations in and through classroom literacy events; presents transcripts of classroom literacy events to illustrate how theoretical constructs, the research issue, the research site, methods, research techniques, and previous studies of discourse analysis come together to constitute a discourse analysis; and discusses the complexity of "locating" microethnographic discourse analysis studies within the field of literacy studies and within broader intellectual movements. This volume is of broad interest and will be widely welcomed by scholars and students in the field language and literacy studies, educational researchers focusing on analysis of classroom discourse, educational sociolinguists, and sociologists and anthropologists focusing on face-to-face interaction and language use. © 2005 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.
This introductory textbook presents a variety of approaches and perspectives that can be employed to analyze any sample of discourse. The perspectives come from multiple disciplines, including linguistics, sociolinguistics, and linguistic anthropology, all of which shed light on meaning and the interactional construction of meaning through language use. Students without prior experience in discourse analysis will appreciate and understand the micro-macro relationship of language use in everyday contexts, in professional and academic settings, in languages other than English, and in a wide variety of media outlets.
sociolinguistics;qualitative analysis;communication;communities;ethnography
Bringing together papers written by Norman Fairclough over a 25 year period, Critical Discourse Analysis represents a comprehensive and important contribution to the development of this popular field.
Despite a recent focus on engaging students in epistemic practices, there is relatively little research on how learning environments can support the simultaneous, coordinated development of both practice and the knowledge that emerges from and supports scientific activity. This study reports on the co‐construction of modeling practice and ecological knowledge by following the development of one seminal disciplinary concept, plant reproduction, through third graders' yearlong investigation of a wild backyard area. Representational activity facilitated the visibility and utility of meanings for reproduction; these meanings, in turn, shaped students' subsequent modeling practice. Over time, shifts were evident in both the community's meanings for reproduction and their framing of meanings in relation to modeling activity. The analysis affirms the utility of attending to student knowledge as it is used in practice to navigate complexity and uncertainty, rather than as assimilation of declarative statements. It also provides images of productive relations between modeling and knowledge, with implications for how the two might bootstrap each other in extended classroom investigation. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 96: 1071–1105, 2012
This article draws on M. M. Bakhtin's (1981) notion of dialogism to articulate what it means to understand a scientific idea. In science, understanding an idea is both conceptual and epistemic and is exhibited by an ability to use it in explanation and argumentation. Some distillation of these activities implies that dialogic understanding of a scientific idea includes being able to use it to explain natural phenomena, being aware that it is one among a multiplicity of alternatives, and that the scientific idea is superior to alternatives based upon a scientific evaluation which involves relating it to evidence. This notion of dialogic understanding is related here to a scaffolding framework, which we argue characterizes one form of instructional support for framing content dialogically as part of explanation and argumentation. For illustration, the framework is applied to data from a high school evolutionary biology course. In contrast to the prevailing position that dialogic understanding should be supported through engaging in argumentation (i.e., actual dialogue), we entertain an additional possibility that dialogic understanding can be supported through dialogic framing. We also entertain the possibility that dialogic framing of content can provide initial support for student engagement in argumentation. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 96:369–391, 2012
The concerns of this paper come from an attempt to develop sociological inquiry from women's standpoint and to create a sociology for people. It is a project that must rely on the possibility of “telling the truth.” The poststructuralist/postmodernist critique of representation and reference creates a fundamental problem for this project. It challenges the very possibility of a sociology committed to inquiry into the actualities of the social as people live them.
The poststructuralist/postmodernist critique of the unitary subject of modernity is central. It is argued that the subject and subject‐object relations are inescapably in and of discourse and language. Both subject and object are discursively constituted and there is no beyond to which reference can be made in establishing the truth of statements. Rather subjects are constituted only in discourse and are fragmented, multiple, diverse. This paper argues that, though the unitary subject is rejected, an individuated subject survives though multiplied and that a central failure of poststructuralism/postmodernism is to come to grips with the social as actual socially organized practices.
Using the theories of George Herbert Mead and Mikhail Bakhtin, the paper goes on to offer an alternative understanding of referring and “telling the truth.” Observations of sequences in which people are identifying an object for one another are described to demonstrate the radically and ineluctably social character of the process. The argument is then extrapolated with further examples to offer an alternative account of referring. A description of using a street map in an actual context of “finding our way” exemplifies how a science might be inserted into a local practice. Telling the truth, it is argued, is always and only in just such actual sequences of dialogue among people directly present to one another or indirectly present in the texts they have produced. My own and others' observations are used to reconceptualize “referring” in general as integral to a social act of finding and recognizing an object as a local performance. In conclusion, I suggest that the example of a map offers to sociology a model that does not displace and subordinate people's experience but can be used by them to expand their knowledge beyond it.
Educational psychology has fought a tiring battle over the last one hundred or so years, substantiating itself as a scientific discipline while maintaining weak linkages to its disciplinary forbearers (i.e., philosophy or psychology). As time has passed, the linkages to our disciplinary roots have become more and more distant, especially in reference to philosophy. As such, the purpose of this article is to trace philosophical footprints in educational psychology, including Charles Peirce's pragmaticism and Josiah Royce's absolute pragmatism. In tracing these footprints, I will offer ways in which educational psychology has deviated from these root philosophical theories and posit possible benefits and detriments of these theories to our field. I close with an examination of the current uses of philosophy in educational psychology and some reflection on what educational psychology can give back to philosophy.
We propose an integration of aspects of several developmental and systems of beliefs models of personal epistemology. Qualitatively different positions, including realism, dogmatism, skepticism, and rationalism, are characterized according to individuals' beliefs across three dimensions in a model of epistemic and ontological cognition. This model incorporates ideas from philosophical epistemology, including a focus on students' multiple means of justification. Concerns regarding the psychometric qualities of quantitative measures of personal epistemology inform this model and its proposed operationalization. We suggest a means of statistical analysis that can be used to assess the construct and predictive validity of this conceptual model by testing the relations among positions, dimensions, and covariates of interest. Future research directions include investigating how individuals choose among various forms of justification.
Constructivism in science education has incorporated a multitude of perspectives. Many of these perspectives agree with the general assertion that knowledge is constructed. Two such projects are conceptual change theory and radical constructivism. In this article, I distinguish these two traditions based on four issues: ontology; epistemological commitments; view of learners; and authority of received ideas. I bring a philosophy of science perspective to bear, treating conceptual change theory and radical constructivism as Lakatosian research programs. Through this process the philosophical coherence of the radical constructivist research program is brought into question. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
In this article, we examine the oral and written discourse processes in a high school physics class and how these discourse processes are related to sociocultural practices in scientific communities. Our theoretical framework is based on sociological and anthropological studies of scientific communities and ethnographies of classroom life. We review the use of discourse analysis as a methodological orientation in science education and provide a logic-of-inquiry framing how we used discourse analysis in our ethnographic research. Our ethnographic analysis showed that, through students' participation in creating scientific papers on the physics of sound, their appropriation of scientific discourse was related to the framing activities of the teachers and the social practices established over time in the classroom. Our textual analysis of the student papers focused on how they used evidence to make claims. We explore the lessons learned from participating in the classroom of these students. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 36: 883–915, 1999
In this article we drew from studies in the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) to create a new perspective for understanding school science. In doing so, we brought together ethnography and discourse analysis to study science-in-the-making in a physics classroom. We sought to document the social practices that constituted students' experimental data trials. To understand these interactions, we investigated the local conceptual ecologies created in the moment by student laboratory groups and the views of science made available across multiple classroom-based activities. Throughout the study we asked what counts as science in this science classroom. In doing so, we traced how science was portrayed and interactionally acknowledged across the shifting sociocultural contexts that constitute this high school physics class studied. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
The practical epistemologies of university students during laboratory work in chemistry are analyzed to enhance understanding of how teaching practices interact with learners. The purpose is to develop a theoretical framework of learning as action that can be used by educational researchers to examine meaning-making, but also by teachers in close association with their daily work to understand the course learning takes in their own classrooms. Here this framework is adopted to demonstrate how the sequence of learning may affect the subject content learnt. It is also demonstrated how learning can be understood in terms of habits, and how observations of such habits could be used by a teacher to inform her/his teaching. The theory of practical epistemologies is based on the later Wittgenstein, pragmatics, and sociocultural approaches identifying learning with talk, action, and habits situated in practices. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed88:325–344, 2004; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/.sce10129