Personal Epistemology in Elementary Classrooms: A Conceptual Comparison of Germany and the United States and a Guide for Future Cross-Cultural Research

Examining the influences of epistemic beliefs and knowledge representations on cognitive processing and conceptual change when learning physics

“…In particular, it appears that the consistency is not between the underlying epistemic nature of the domain; rather, it is the epistemic nature of the text. Accordingly, in line with Bromme et al (2010), we argue that epistemic beliefs researchers should consider the epistemic nature of learning tasks e as well as other aspects of the epistemic climate (Haerle & Bendixen, 2008;Muis et al, 2006) e when exploring their relations with individuals' epistemic beliefs.…”

“…Mislevy and colleagues (Mislevy et al, 2010) define knowledge representation, broadly speaking, as the way in which information about the world is represented, differentiating between internal knowledge representation, or the way in which we represent knowledge in our brains, and external knowledge representation, or "a physical or conceptual structure that depicts entities and relationships in some domain, in a way that can be shared among different individuals or the same individual at different points in time" (Mislevy et al, 2010, p. 4). Moreover, in their framework outlining various aspects of the epistemic climate, Haerle and Bendixen (2008) highlight textbooks, curricula, and assessments as examples of knowledge representations that could be explored in the context of epistemic beliefs research.…”

“…This is in line with current thinking by some scholars who have suggested that, to develop a more comprehensive understanding of students' epistemic beliefs, we need to explore how they interact with the epistemic climate (Muis, Bendixen, & Haerle, 2006). The epistemic climate refers to facets of knowledge and knowing that are salient in various aspects of an educational environment, such as teachers' beliefs, knowledge representations (e.g., textbooks, assessments, curricula), and instructional practices (e.g., teaching strategies or approaches) (Haerle & Bendixen, 2008). The current study responds to these calls by examining the role of students' epistemic beliefs and knowledge representations in cognitive and metacognitive processing in the context of learning about physics.…”

On the epistemological features promoted by ‘Philosophy for Children’ and their psychological advantages when incorporated into RE

“…However, several authors have suggested that an evaluativist position is necessary for the health of our democratic societies where it is of utmost importance to be able to make autonomous, reflexive and critical choices (Haerle and Bendixen 2008;Meyer 2010). In matters of religious beliefs, for example, it means that individuals do not follow blindly what their religious leaders tell them to do.…”

Epistemological beliefs of third‐grade students in an investigation‐rich classroom

“…A noteworthy point is that a number of influences—such as the epistemologies of individuals and the representations of knowledge within an environment—are posited. Haerle and Bendixen (2008) elaborate on this position when describing the educational model of personal epistemology , in which the following four dimensions are thought to be interdependent: learners' personal epistemology, teacher's personal epistemology, epistemic instructions, and epistemic knowledge representations. Taken together, the positions described here suggest dimensions to consider when investigating influences on epistemic development.…”