The Virtuous Scientist Project: Intellectual Virtues, Epistemic Reasoning, and Science Identity

• In Event: Educational Responses to a Post-Truth World: Diverse Theoretical Approaches to Improving Thinking About Scientific Issues

Abstract

The Virtuous Scientist Project is motivated by a conviction that much more could be done to prepare students for the practice of science in post-baccalaureate careers. The cultivation of intellectual virtues in science education is a particularly crucial objective because science is widely acknowledged as the premier knowledge-generating enterprise; and “if anything can deliver the epistemic goods, it is science” (Roberts & Wood, 2007, p. 4). But training better scientists is only an adjunct of forming better persons. Our concern is designing science education so that it equips students with the intellectual virtues that conduce to good citizenship at a time when science denialism, alternative-facts, and post-truth corrupt public discourse about matters of fundamental national interest (Krief et al., 2017).If training better scientists and science literate citizens is an adjunct to forming better persons, then science education is in the business of character formation. The virtuous scientist has both well-cultivated intellectual virtues and sophisticated understanding of the epistemic claims that derive from the nature of science.

To this end, the Virtuous Scientist Project proposes deep integration among three fields of study: virtue epistemology, epistemic reasoning and science education. Virtue epistemology affirms that the dispositions of the agent and the formation of character is crucial to intellectual formation (Baehr, 2011; Battaly, 2012). The educational psychology literatures raise questions about epistemic cognition and the characteristics and development of epistemic reasoning as targets of learning and instruction (e.g., Chinn, et al. 2011). The science education literatures raise questions about the nature of authentic inquiry and what students come to know about science (Chinn & Malhotra, 2002); but it also investigates the pedagogies that contribute to the formation of a professional STEM identity (Nadelson et al., 2017).

Our paper will map the terrain among the three fields and advance several claims: Intellectual virtue is an important (albeit neglected) component of epistemic cognition (Chinn et al., 2011), but integration between the two fields requires “science identity” as a bridge construct to provide a motivational component to the work of virtues and epistemic cognition. Science identity is a form of character formation that includes virtue and epistemic commitments as part of self-identity. Consequently, science identity is an important goal of science education. Indeed, epistemic cognition and the formation of intellectual virtues requires the right kind of intellectual setting that includes emulation of exemplars and mentored apprenticeship in a community of practice that is intentionally conversant in the language of epistemic virtue and the epistemic claims of science.

Our research agenda includes development of assessments of science identity and select intellectual virtues, such as narrative methods that track epistemic cognition and virtue in the evolving narrative of the self. We outline the objectives of a research consortium that will examine scalable features of science education that conduces to virtuous science; and test the hypothesis that achieving epistemic aims may well hinge on the intellectual character of students. We conclude that the virtuous scientist is a product of science education that combines virtue epistemology and science epistemology.

Authors

• Daniel Lapsley, University of Notre Dame

• Dominic Chaloner, University of Notre Dame