Beyond epistemological deficits: incorporating flexible epistemological views into fine-grained cognitive dynamics

  • Authors:

  • Ayush Gupta;Andy Elby

  • Affiliations:

  • University of Maryland, College Park, MD;University of Maryland, College Park, MD

  • Venue:
  • ICLS '10 Proceedings of the 9th International Conference of the Learning Sciences - Volume 2
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

Researchers have argued against deficit-based explanations of students' troubles with mathematical sense-making, pointing instead to factors such as epistemology: students' beliefs about knowledge and learning can hinder them from activating and integrating productive knowledge they have. But such explanations run the risk of substituting an epistemological deficit for a concepts/skills deficit. Our analysis of an undergraduate engineering major avoids this "deficit trap" by incorporating multiple, context-dependent epistemological stances into his cognitive dynamics. (Support: NSF 08-335880).