When It Is Also About You: The Potential for Fostering Epistemic Development in a Cognitive Development Class

• In Event: Poster Session 2
  In Poster Session: Advances in the Study of Epistemic Beliefs and Their Impact on Student and Teacher Outcomes

Abstract

This mixed-method study explores undergraduates' epistemic development in the context of a Cognitive Development course, in which students acquired content knowledge with potential relevance for their epistemic views and were regularly prompted to personalize that content. Students (N = 33) responded during the first and final class meetings to four open-ended questions about their understandings of cognition, cognitive development, and learning, framed abstractly and personally. Analysis of questionnaire responses indicated that students moved toward greater epistemic adaptiveness, although individuals showed different degrees of change. Overall, they produced longer responses for the personally framed questions; some wrote relatively well-structured, stable personal narratives.

Authors

• Emily W. Fox, University of Maryland

• Liliana Maggioni, The Catholic University of America