Ala Samarapungavan

Expanding the Dimensions of Epistemic Cognition: Arguments from Philosophy and Psychology.

Psychological and educational researchers have developed a flourishing research program on epistemological dimensions of cognition (epistemic cognition). Contemporary philosophers investigate many epistemological topics that are highly relevant to this program but that have not featured in research on epistemic cognition. We argue that integrating these topics into psychological models of epistemic cognition is likely to improve the explanatory and predictive power of these models. We thus propose and explicate a philosophically grounded framework for epistemic cognition that includes five components: (a) epistemic aims and epistemic value; (b) the structure of knowledge and other epistemic achievements; (c) the sources and justification of knowledge and other epistemic achievements, and the related epistemic stances; (d) epistemic virtues and vices; and (e) reliable and unreliable processes for achieving epistemic aims. We further argue for a fine-grained, context-specific analysis of cognitions within the five components.

Children's thoughts on the origin of species: a study of explanatory coherence

This paper presents the results of a study which examined childrens ideas about speciation. Two groups of elementary school students, 9-year-olds and 12-year-olds, were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. The results indicate that several children explain the phenomena of speciation in terms of consistent explanatory frameworks that strongly resemble either early Greek or renaissance variants of Essentialist theories in biology. The core beliefs of such frameworks constrain the types of solutions that are generated for a variety of biological problems.

Mental Models of the Earth, Sun, and Moon: Indian Children's Cosmologies.

Abstract This study reports data on the acquisition of knowledge about astronomy in children from India. Based on prior research, we hypothesized that the cosmological models that children construct are influenced by both first-order and second-order constraints on knowledge acquisition. First-order constraints are the implicit assumptions that govern the construction of initial cosmological models. Examples of such constraints include the assumptions that the earth is flat and supported. Such first-order constraints are presumed to be universal. Second-order constraints arise from the specific properties ascribed to cosmological objects. For example, representations of the earths shape and location relative to the sun and moon constrain the kinds of mechanisms that are generated to account for the day-night cycle. We hypothesized that in cultures where both folk cosmologies and the scientific cosmological model are accessible to children, aspects of folk models are likely to be incorporated in childrens cosmologies if they provide a psychologically easier way of satisfying first-order constraints. This hypothesis is supported by our findings with regard to universality and culture specificity in childrens cosmologies. Indian childrens cosmologies honor a variety of universal first-order constraints. These include constraints on the shape of the earth (e.g., support and flatness) and on the relative locations and motions of objects in the cosmology (e.g., continuity). However, many Indian children borrow the idea that the earth is supported by an ocean or a body of water from folk cosmology. This solution to the support constraint on the shape of the earth is not found in American childrens initial cosmologies.

Explanation in Scientists and Children

In this paper we provide a psychological account of the nature and development of explanation. We propose that an explanation is an account that provides a conceptual framework for a phenomenon that leads to a feeling of understanding in the reader/hearer. The explanatory conceptual framework goes beyond the original phenomenon, integrates diverse aspects of the world, and shows how the original phenomenon follows from the framework. We propose that explanations in everyday life are judged on the criteria of empirical accuracy, scope, consistency, simplicity, and plausibility. We conclude that explanations in science are evaluated by the same criteria, plus those of precision, formalisms, and fruitfulness. We discuss several types of explanation that are used in everyday life – causal/mechanical, functional, and intentional. We present evidence to show that young children produce explanations (often with different content from those of adults) that have the same essential form as those used by adults. We also provide evidence that children use the same evaluation criteria as adults, but may not apply those additional criteria for the evaluation of explanations that are used by scientists.

Elementary School Children's Beliefs about Matter.

In this study, we investigated young childrens (ages 7–10) spontaneously constructed or naive understanding of the particulate nature of matter prior to any formal instruction in the domain. Fifteen students were interviewed concerning their understanding of the macroscopic and microscopic properties of the states of matter (solid, liquid, and gas), as well as their macro/microscopic understanding of phase changes and dissolving. Children expressed ideas about states of matter which were categorized as macrocontinuous, macroparticulate, or microparticulate. Nine children (60%) stated beliefs about matter which were macroparticulate in nature, and three (20%) expressed microparticulate beliefs about matter. The three remaining children (20%) held macrocontinuous beliefs about matter. Furthermore, a substantial number of the children provided explanations of properties and processes which were consistent with those beliefs. These childrens beliefs about matter were not fully and consistently developed across the spectrum of substances from continuous solids to particulate solids to liquids to gases. We speculate that children first develop local frameworks particular to different classes of substances and then slowly expand these frameworks to include a wide range of substances and their properties, as well as such processes as melting and freezing.

Children's judgments in theory choice tasks: scientific rationality in childhood.

The current research examined whether children could use certain metaconceptual criteria such as the range of explanation, non-ad hocness of explanation, empirical consistency, and logical consistency to choose between competing accounts of physical phenomena. The tasks were constructed so that the conceptual content of the explanations to be evaluated was either consistent, inconsistent, or neutral with regard to childrens prior knowledge. It was found that even 7-year-olds could use metaconceptual criteria such as the range, empirical consistency, and logical consistency of theories when the theories did not violate their beliefs. However only older children (11-year-olds) showed a systematic preference for non-ad hoc theories over ad hoc ones. The findings are consistent with recent work in the philosophy of science showing that, in evaluating theoretical alternatives, scientists are influenced by their prior beliefs about the domain being considered. This research demonstrates that even young children share some of the cognitive underpinnings of scientific rationality that scientists do.

Patterns of Young Children's Motivation for Science and Teacher-Child Relationships

In this article, the authors examined whether there were different motivational profiles within a sample of kindergarteners (N = 110) learning science. The authors identified 3 profiles involving childrens perceived competence in, liking, and ease of learning science by using cluster analysis. High motivational beliefs characterized the largest profile. Low competence but high liking characterized a smaller group, and another group reported low liking with moderate competence. These profiles did not differ by gender, race, early academic achievement, or classroom. However, children with the low-competence and high-liking profile reported less teacher support for learning than did children with high motivational beliefs. Exploratory analysis also indicated that the nature and frequency of observed teacher-child interactions differed by motivational profile.

Distinguishing Between Understanding and Belief

Clark A. Chinn is an assistant professor of education at Rutgers University; Ala Samarapungavan is an associate professor of education at Purdue University. S A FIFTH-GRADE TEACHER, has just completed a science unit on molecules, and her class has done well on the unit test that she just handed back. After going over the test, the class heads to recess. Sandra overhears one student who received a high test score asking another, “Do you really believe that stuff about molecules?” The other replies, “No way!” The teacher has never heard such an exchange in 10 years of teaching. She wonders if it is rare for students to disbelieve ideas they have encountered in class or if this occurs regularly and she has just never noticed. In this article, we will show that students frequently do not believe what they are learning in school, in science, and in other classes. Because of this, teachers must seriously consider the role of persuasive teaching in their classes. A key distinction that underpins this article is the distinction between understanding an idea and believing that idea. We think that educational theory and practice have been hampered by a neglect of this distinction. Most theoretical and practical work has conceptualized learning as knowledge change. However, the conceptualization of learning as changes in knowledge confuses changes in understanding with changes in belief. This confusion can lead to mistaken conclusions about how to plan instruction. This article is divided into three parts. First, we discuss the distinction between understanding and belief. We provide an illustration showing that teachers’ interpretations of what students have learned can be seriously in error when they do not consider both understanding and belief. Second, we present some examples to show that students’ understandings and beliefs often diverge, which makes it necessary to take both into account when thinking about what students are learning. Many of our examples are drawn from science, because most of our own research is in this area. But we think divergences between understanding and belief occur in other school subjects, as well. Third, we discuss implications for teachers. These implications center on a metaphor of teaching as persuasion.

What Kindergarten Students Learn in Inquiry-Based Science Classrooms

The purpose of this study was to examine how participation in an inquiry-based science program impacts kindergarten students’ science learning and motivation. The study was implemented as part of a larger, federally funded research project, the Scientific Literacy Project or SLP (Mantzicopoulos, Patrick, & Samarapungavan, 2005). The study provides descriptive data on the science learning and motivation of public kindergarten students who participated in a year-long implementation of a series of inquiry-based science units as part of SLP. The students who learned science through guided-inquiry (the INQ group) completed six inquiry-based science units over the course of the school year. Data were also collected from a group of kindergarten students (the COMP group) who received regular science instruction on a similar set of topics to the INQ group but did not use the inquiry-based SLP approach to science. Data from this latter group helped us better understand the extent to which the patterns of conceptual development observed in the children who learned science through inquiry could be attributed to the features of the research-based SLP curriculum rather than other factors like maturation or the mere exposure to any science instruction. There were 186 students who participated in the study (118 INQ and 68 COMP students). A variety of measures, including researcher-developed measures of learning and motivation as well as standardized measures of achievement, were administered to both groups. Statistical analyses of pre and posttest performance showed that INQ students made significant gains across all measures of science learning from the beginning to the end of the school year. They developed an enhanced functional understanding of scientific inquiry.

“We Learn How to Predict and be a Scientist”: Early Science Experiences and Kindergarten Children's Social Meanings About Science

We examine kindergarten childrens emerging social meanings about science as a function of their participation in integrated science inquiry and literacy activities associated with the Scientific Literacy Project (SLP). We describe changes in 123 SLP kindergarten childrens narrative accounts of learning science in school during three different time periods: (a) in September, before the onset of SLP activities; (b) in December, after children had participated in 17 lessons associated with 4 SLP units; and (c) in March, after children had participated in an additional 13 lessons associated with the SLP Marine Life unit. At the end of the year, we: (a) compare SLP childrens narratives about science to those of a group of children (n = 70) who only experienced the regular kindergarten program; and (b) examine differences between SLP and comparison childrens reports on a measure of learning activities in kindergarten that include science as well as privileged content areas such as reading, writing, and learning about numbers and shapes. Results support the conclusion that sustained and meaningful participation in conceptually coherent science programs is crucial for children to develop meanings about science as a distinct academic domain that comprises its own disciplinary content, language, and processes.