The impact of epistemology on learning: A case study from introductory physics

By L. Lising, Andrew Elby. 2004

272 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We discuss a case study of the influence of epistemology on learning for a student in an introductory college physics course. An analysis of videotaped class work, written work, and interviews indicates that many of the student’s difficulties were epistemological in nature. Our primary goals are to show instructors and curriculum developers that a student’s personal epistemological stance—her ideas about knowledge and learning—can have a direct, causal influence on her learning of physics, and to describe a mechanism for this interaction. This influence exists even when research-based curriculum materials provide implicit epistemological support. For this reason, curriculum materials and teaching techniques could become more effective by explicitly attending to students’ epistemologies.

Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Education, Physical and Theoretical Chemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d132dc01605136a35b44cfd3f580f9e8121b630f

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In Developmental and Educational Psychology

In Education

In Physical and Theoretical Chemistry

Citations in the corpus

Epistemological resources and framing: a cognitive framework for helping teachers interpret and respond to their students' epistemologies (2010, methodology): “Rather, we expect local coherences, including belief-like consistencies and stabilities, within a given context (Hammer, 1994) and sometimes across contexts (Lising & Elby, 2005).”
Novice Teachers' Attention to Student Thinking (2009, background): “Sherry’s framing varied from one setting to another, separate in space and time (for a richly documented example, see Lising & Elby, 2005).”
Student Perceptions of Learning in the Laboratory: Comparison of Industrially Situated Virtual Laboratories to Capstone Physical Laboratories (2011, background): “Studies in physics have shown that students with more expert-like epistemological beliefs are more likely to show conceptual advancement (Chu, Treagust, & Chandrasegaran, 2008; Lising & Elby, 2005; May & Etkina, 2002; Sahin, 2010).”
Synthesis of Discipline-Based Education Research in Physics. (2014, background): “Lising and Elby [534] conducted a case study on a single student “Jan” to investigate how epistemology affects learning.”
Beyond Epistemological Deficits: Dynamic explanations of engineering students’ difficulties with mathematical sense-making (2011, background): “’s ( 1992 ) and Schoenfeld’s ( 1989 ), case studies delve more deeply into individual students’ reasoning, elucidating causal mechanisms by which epistemology affects mathematical sense‐making during problem‐solving (Bing & Redish, 2009 ; Hammer, 1994 ; Lising & Elby, 2005 ).”
Multiple Epistemological Coherences in an Eighth-Grade Discussion of the Rock Cycle (2006, methodology): “Perry’s (1970), Schommer’s (1990), Hammer’s (1994), and other studies thathavedocumentedpatterns in students’statements,behaviors, andsurvey responses have provided evidence to motivate attributing epistemological knowledge: Something must produce those patterns. There is more to the phenomenology t”