Instructional Strategies in a Math-Related Task Affect Epistemic Cognition in Young Learners

• In Event: Students' Epistemic Cognition

Abstract

The current study investigated whether different instructional strategies on a math-related task affected children’s epistemic cognition on a variety of tasks. Children ages four to eight (N = 97) were randomly assigned to one of three instructions conditions in a math-related Lego-building task: no-instruction discovery, pedagogical demonstration, and accidental demonstration. Children subsequently completed tasks that required them to think about multiple solutions or see that knowledge can be justified in different ways. In general, children in the pedagogical condition did not do as well as children in the other conditions, suggesting that the pedagogical instructions restricted their epistemic cognition. The results suggest that instructional strategies with young children may play a role in developing non-availing beliefs about math.

Authors

• Michael M. Barger, University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign

• Andrei Cimpian