Epistemology and reading

Abstract

SEPISTEMOLOGY is the branch of philosophy that deals with what can be counted as knowledge, where knowledge is located, and how knowledge increases. In this study, the epistemology of reading theory, practice, and research was investigated. The authors derived seven main issues in epistemology. Each of the seven issues is a continuum along which important historical and current epistemologies differ. Together, the seven issues comprise a multivariate continuum along which lie the major theories of knowledge of the past and present. The authors divided this multivariate continuum into five clusters of epistemology. The seven issues, worded in the form of questions, and the five clusters then served as a tool for engaging in epistemological inquiry. The tool was primarily employed to examine the theories of knowledge implicit in two views of the reading process (Rosenblatt's and Rumelhart's). The tool was also used in a more general way to examine epistemological issues underlying reading instruction and research. It was concluded that differences between and among theories of reading, reading instructional approaches, and reading research paradigms often result from and obscure fundamental epistemological differences. Making these epistemological differences explicit may, somewhat paradoxically, foster both diversity and healthier competition. Note. Y = Yes, N = No; COR = Correspondence, COH = Coherence, PR = Pragmatic; U = Universal, PT = Particular; D = Dualism, O = Outside, B = Between, I = Inside, M=Monism, P = Pluralism; SD = Sense data, MA = Mental activity; DI = Discovered, C=Created.

Domain-Generality and Domain-Specificity in Personal Epistemology Research: Philosophical and Empirical Reflections in the Development of a Theoretical Framework

“…By making comparisons, broadly stated, we demonstrate how individuals' beliefs can be similar and different across domains in the context of our theoretical model. Although descriptions of various views and relations have previously been illustrated (e.g., Cunningham & Fitzgerald, 1996), our descriptions differ as we provide explicit examples of dominant epistemologies, or epistemic patterns of various domains. Subsequent to a brief account of our definition of academic domain, we elaborate how knowledge across domains can vary as a function of the certainty of knowledge, structure of knowledge, sources of knowledge, and justifications for knowing.…”

I'm absolutely certain that's probably true: Exploring epistemologies of sophomore engineering students

“…In particular the work of Fitzgerald and Cunningham [8,9], Mason et al [10][11][12] and Hofer et al [13][14][15] were influential. This framework was designed to incorporate the dimensions that other researchers have developed into a viable and, potentially, more complete personal epistemology framework that allows us to explore the many potential aspects of students' personal epistemologies without setting unnecessary limitations.…”

Teachers’ beliefs and practices within and across domains

“…We focused on three world views we refer to as realists, contextualists, and relativists (see Table 1) that we synthesized from the work of previous researchers (Cunningham & Fitzgerald, 1996;Fielstein & Phelps, 2001;Kincheloe, Slattery, & Steinberg, 2000;Kuhn, Cheney, & Weinstock, 2000). Realists believe that there is a fixed, core body of knowledge that is best acquired through experts via transmission and reconstruction.…”