Epistemological Practices in Family Science Learning Activity: A Case Study

• In Event: Drawing on Families' Ways of Perceiving and Knowing to Learn About Diverse Epistemologies in Action

Abstract

We use a case study approach to examine how one family interacts with each other epistemologically. We attend to how their patterns of interaction might provide both a context in which, and mechanisms by which, children develop epistemological practices and values (Rogoff, 2003; Lave & Wenger, 1991). We present in-depth analysis of the family doing science-related activities together outside at a beach: one of many contexts in which families interact with each other around “knowing.” Drawing on Interaction Analysis methods for analyzing the video data (Goldman & McDermott, 2007), we ask how this family organizes collaborative sensemaking across a two-hour trip to a beach. We identify moments when two or more family members orient toward a question or a surprising phenomenon. We ask how family members position themselves and their activity with respect to what is “known” and “unknown,” and how collaborative activity gets organized into moments of “knowing” together. We use two sources of video data: the family doing science-related activities together at a beach, and a post-beach interview with the parents and children (9- and 7-year-old).

Analyses are ongoing and findings suggest that parents and children co-construct several different epistemological practices throughout the beach trip, which include spontaneous lessons centered on “known answer” questions as well as jointly evaluating mechanistic explanations of “known” and “unknown” phenomena. At times the children eagerly participate with the adults, and at other times they resist, with varying outcomes. Who gets to “know” and what counts as “knowing” varies across situation and epistemic roles within family interaction (e.g., who evaluates ideas) shift over time. In their interview, the family talks explicitly about what counts as knowledge and learning, and we present evidence that the children are aware of the practices that are valued and how they are expected to engage in them.

For example, while at the beach Mom pointed out a ripple pattern in a patch of sand, asking how the ripples got there. The children eagerly offered ideas (e.g., wind blowing, gravity). Dad acknowledged each idea but continued to ask how wind or water could make the specific ripple pattern. Appealing to authority, the daughter remarks “I learned about this in science class, people” seemingly annoyed that her ideas didn’t get taken up as the final, or sufficient, answer. Dad continued pressing for a mechanistic explanation of the causes they proposed, a common pattern observed throughout their activity. In the follow-up interview we asked the daughter why she thinks her Dad kept asking the how question. She said he always needs a “specific” answer and he has to “color in the lines.” This family seems practiced in collaboratively generating and discussing mechanistic causal explanations. We present additional examples that demonstrate how this practice is constructed across contexts, and within different social configurations. Finally, we relate the family’s practices to the ways in which they define science and how they characterize their beach activities as science or not. This analysis has implications for the design of intergenerational informal science learning environments.

Authors

• Megan R. Luce, Stanford University

• Luke David Conlin, Stanford University