Epistemic Cognition and Academic Achievement: A Meta-Analytic Review

• In Event: Students' Epistemic Cognition

Abstract

Given educational reforms designed to emphasize critical thinking and conceptual understanding, there has been an increasing focus on how to measure and promote epistemic cognition, or how people understand, critique, and use knowledge and knowledge sources. Evidence of the relationship between epistemic cognition and academic achievement has been reviewed, but not quantitatively synthesized. We sought to fill this gap by conducting a comprehensive meta-analysis of this relationship. Using a dataset of 131 articles with 742 effect sizes and 54,982 participants, we found evidence of a small-to-medium, statistically and practically significant correlation between epistemic cognition and academic achievement. Further, we found numerous important moderators of this relationship, with implications for the future of research on epistemic cognition.

Authors

• Jeff A. Greene, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• Brian Cartiff, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• Rebekah F Duke, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill