Beliefs About Knowledge

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Beliefs About Knowledge

• Nicholas Spangler

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Beliefs About Knowledge What are they?

• Knowledge beliefs are the concepts learners
• hold about the nature of knowledge.
• Where Does Knowledge Come from?
• -Experts and activities conducted by authorities
  with skills quite unlike those of laypeople
• -Empirical studies or other activities guided by
  reason and method
• Sources of validity
• -Omniscient authorities
• -Evidence

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Beliefs About Knowledge What are they?

• Certainty or Tentativeness of Knowledge
• -That which is known is more or less a
  collection of unchanging facts of whose truth we
  will always be certain.
• -That which is known to be true now may well
  change in the future, though perhaps remain true
  in certain contexts. Knowledge is tentative.

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Why are Epistemological Beliefs Relevant?
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Personal Epistemology

• William Perry, Jr. (1968)
• Interviewed Harvard undergraduates throughout
  their four-year college experience.
• Hypothesis the development of epistemological
  beliefs will move from dualistic thinking to a
  more relativistic approach.

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• Beliefs About Knowledge

Dualist- right or wrong
Relativist- evidentially based
Final-year students believe in tentative complex
knowledge derived from reason and empirical
inquiry
First-year students believe in simple
unchangeable facts handed down by omniscient
authority
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Personal Epistemology

• Levels of Development
• Perry (1968)
• Knowledge is simple and a direct reflection of
  reality, not requiring justification. Information
  is true or false and handed down by authority
  figures.
• Realization of the uncertainty of knowledge,
  though this uncertainty is temporary. In time
  authorities will determine the ultimate facts.
• The embracing of the tentativeness of knowledge
  and the belief that knowledge must be understood
  contextually, and must be open to evaluation.

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Perrys Levels of Development
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Development of Epistemological Theory

• Proposed dualistic and relativistic positions and
  their respective justifications for beliefs
  (authority vs evidence).
• Theoretical stages of development proposed by
  Perry (1968) are believed to be more or less a
  function of university education.
• Perrys Theory
• Descriptive but not explanatory as to how these
  beliefs develop
• Lacks an explanation as to how beliefs affect
  learning and comprehension

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Epistemological Belief System

• Marlene Schommer-Aikins (1990)
• Beliefs about learning
• Structure of knowledge
• Certainty of knowledge
• Asynchronous development
• Need for balance
• Ways of Knowing

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Beliefs About Learning Speed of Learning
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Beliefs About Learning Ability
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Structure of Knowledge
Relativistic thinker knowledge is context
dependent. Understanding is measured by the
degree to which connections can be made amongst
ideas, and to what extent the knowledge can be
applied.
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Certainty of Knowledge

• Consequences of Certainty

Lower levels of comprehension Distortion of
information with tentative content in order
to maintain consistency amongst previously held
beliefs Adherence to the certainty of knowledge
may be especially problematic when dealing with
scientific information, as falsifiability is a
pillar of the philosophy of science
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Asynchrony of Beliefs
Learner
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Asynchronous Development

• Epistemological beliefs may develop
  asynchronously.
• e.g. the belief that knowledge is predominantly
  complex, yet at the same time knowledge is
  unchanging.
• The belief that knowledge is complex is mature,
  whereas the belief that knowledge is unchanging
  represents a lesser degree of development.
• Asynchrony may mark periods of growth and
  transition
• Maturity and development refer to the degree that
  the belief
• supports higher order thinking.

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Extreme Beliefs and a Need for Balance
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Ways of Knowing

• Connected Knowing

Empathizes with the knowledge source, taking on
the sources perspective. Criticism follows only
once an understanding of the Perspective is
achieved.
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Ways of Knowing

• Separate Knowing

Immediate adoption of an adversarial
perspective. Questioning, doubting and awaiting
evidence before attempting to construct a deep
understanding of the information
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Embedded Systemic Model
Beliefs about knowledge
Classroom performance
cultural relational views
Beliefs about ways of knowing
Self-regulated learning
Beliefs about learning
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Social Influences

• Each influential group holds a set of beliefs

peers
Views and beliefs on cultural relations ways of
knowing knowledge learning classroom Performance S
elf-regulated learning
learner
family
teachers
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Summary

• Schommer-Aikins Model
• Identifies social influences upon the development
  of ones personal epistemology.
• Describes the way in which dualistic and
  relativistic thinking influences the sorts of
  things one does with information.
• Explains how beliefs affect learning,
  comprehension, and the character of our approach
  to understanding (i.e. ways of knowing.
• The Embedded Systemic Model describes the
  interaction of beliefs and learning.