Shared Epistemic Agency: An Empirical Study of an Emergent Construct

Damşa, Crina; Kirschner, Paul A.; Andriessen, Jerry; Erkens, Gijsbert; Sins, Patrick

doi:10.1080/10508401003708381

Cited by 180 publications

(184 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Here, the notion of shared epistemic agency proves useful for explaining what drove the groups to engage in particular types of interaction and go about working on the knowledge object. This type of deliberate, goal-oriented approach characterized by a high level of awareness and engagement, as identified in Group D's collaborative work, is rather generic and is in line with other findings on agency (Charles and Shumar 2009;Damşa et al 2010;Schwartz and Okita 2004). In addition, such action bears a close resemblance to what Engle and Conant (2002) labeled as disciplinary engagement performed in relation to a specific task within a particular discipline.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

“…Schwartz and Okita (2004) viewed agency as a system of production and people acting to witness their ideas embodied in concrete products. Their notion of productive agency implies that people produce ideas, artifacts, and objects as part of their agentic patterns, designating the epistemicproductional (Damşa et al 2010) character of collaborative activities. Accordingly, epistemic agency does not reside within the individual's mind but rather emerges through participation in collective activities.…”

Section: Shared Epistemic Agencymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The unit of the analysis was combined: the episodes indicated the general thematic orientation of the discussion, while the coding of the verbal actions (in the context of an episode/theme) indicated the individual but contextualized contribution to this collective discourse. A coding scheme developed in a previous study (Damşa et al 2010), emerging from theory-based categories through iterative analysis of empirical data, was further refined and applied (Annex 1 displays a complete overview of the coding categories). It consists of three dimensions of action: epistemic, regulative, and other, and reflected the types of actions that can be identified in interaction following the theoretical aspects deemed essential in the coconstruction process.…”

Section: Data Collection and Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

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The multi-layered nature of small-group learning: Productive interactions in object-oriented collaboration

Damşa

2014

Intern. J. Comput.-Support. Collab. Learn.

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This article presents a study of small-group interaction in the context of collaborative learning in undergraduate education. The student groups participated in collaborative projects, which involved setting-up, conducting, and reporting on empirical research studies. This study sheds light on the nature of productive interactions, the joint efforts to co-construct knowledge and the shared epistemic agency expected to emerge when groups are addressing ill-structured, complex problems in a collaboration over time. In-depth qualitative analysis and descriptive statistics were used to analyze and interpret interaction data and developing knowledge objects (i.e., research reports) collected during a 20-week project period. The findings show that productive interactions can take different forms, with discourse-based and object-oriented being the most relevant patterns arising. In the latter case, the emergent knowledge objects also influence the course and productivity of the interaction. Finally, groups manifesting shared epistemic agency produce knowledge objects more complex and suitable to the problems addressed. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the collaborative learning process that includes work on knowledge objects over time. The implications for the educational practice and further research point towards the need for a better understanding of the way groups function when challenged to address complex problems and to participate in knowledge production, how these processes can benefit learning, and what is needed in terms of pedagogical and technological support, to enable students to be more than mere coursetakers, but also producers of knowledge.Keywords Knowledge co-construction . Knowledge objects . Learning in higher education . Productive interaction . Shared epistemic agency . Small-group collaboration In the context of emerging changes in the knowledge-based society, students in higher education are expected to be able to address ill-structured and open-ended problems, conceive new ideas, show inquiring attitudes and proactive behavior, and capitalize on collective expertise (Goodyear and Zenios 2007). Learning in small groups that focuses on solving open-ended problems and on managing the collaborative process has been proposed as a wayIntern.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Shared Epistemic Agencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Data Collection and Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

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The multi-layered nature of small-group learning: Productive interactions in object-oriented collaboration

Damşa

2014

Intern. J. Comput.-Support. Collab. Learn.

Self Cite

112

100

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“…These collaborative situations require individuals to explain their ideas and conceptions and through this externalisation of their cognitive processing, make visible to themselves and others their own understandings; thereby allowing the possibility of understandings being reorganised, modified or supplemented (Olivera & Straus, 2004;Van den Bossche, Gijselaers, Segers, & Kirschner, 2006). Transformation of subject-matter to enable learner accessibility may thus involve the agency of others to reduce cognitive load (Janssen et al, 2010) and/or to conceptualise problems, create shared understanding and produce new knowledge (Damşa, Kirschner, Andriessen, Erkens, & Sins, 2010).…”

Section: Bringing Together Transformation Learning Cognition and Mementioning

confidence: 99%

“…These process-related activities steer and organise the construction of corporate knowledge, through reflecting intentions to engage actively in the learning task, ensuring the co-ordination of different contributions, and furthering the beneficial effects of social interaction (Damşa et al, 2010;Hurme, Palonen, & Järvela, 2006). Further such activity needs time; for constructive discussion and debate, and for the routinisation of regulative behaviour in the service of successfully acquiring new knowledge, (Brunstein et al, 2009;Ku & Ho, 2010;Maggioni & Parkinson, 2008;Magno, 2010;Peters & Kitsantas, 2010;Schunk, 2008).…”

Section: Bringing Together Transformation Learning Cognition and Mementioning

confidence: 99%

The psychological dimension of transformation in teacher learning

Maclellan

2012

Teaching Education

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Against a background which recognises pedagogical content knowledge as the distinctive element of teacher competence/expertise, this theoretical essay argues for its central construct -that of transformation -to be understood by teachers and teacher-educators in psychological terms (as was originally proposed by Dewey). Transformation requires teachers to fashion disciplinary knowledge such that it is accessible to the learner. It is argued that for transformation to happen, teacher thinking must include a sophisticated grasp of cognition and metacognition if teachers are to be characterised as competent, let alone expert. This article is written within a context of considerable social and academic scrutiny in the United Kingdom of the form and content of professional teacher preparation and development. In recent years the contribution of psychological knowledge to teacher-education has been filtered through procedural lenses of how best to 'manage classrooms', 'assess learning', 'build confidence' or whatever without a matched concern for psychological constructs through which such issues might be interpreted; thus leaving teachers vulnerable in their professional understandings of learning and its complexities. That society now requires high-level cognitive engagement amongst its participants places cognitive and metacognitive demands on teachers which can only be met if they themselves are conceptually equipped.

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Framing learning entanglement in innovative learning spaces: Connecting theory, design and practice

Carvalho

Yeoman

2018

British Educational Res J

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Innovative learning spaces have emerged in response to the influx of educational technologies and new social practices associated with twenty-first-century learning. Whilst dominant narratives of change often suggest that alterations in the designed environment for learning will result in changed practice, on the ground educators are struggling to align their pedagogical models with new spaces for learning, direct instruction is still common, and technologically deterministic narratives mask a failure to engage with the materiality of learning. This article argues for a non-deterministic theory of things in educational research and calls for a deeper understanding of the flows of matter, information and human-thing dependence, which will render visible the heterogeneous entanglements characteristic of innovative spaces for learning. It highlights that educational designers (e.g. teachers, space planners, architects, instructional designers) are in pressing need of analytical tools capable of supporting their work in ways that promote correspondence between (a) pedagogy, place and people and (b) theory, design and practice. In response, we introduce an analytical approach to framing learning entanglement that accounts for the artefacts, resources and tools available to learners; the choice of tasks and pedagogical models and the social roles and divisions of labour governing any given learning situation. Finally, we practically demonstrate how this approach aids in identifying correspondence or dissonance across dimensions of design and scale levels, in both the analysis and design of complex environments for learning. century competencies and skills' (Scott, 2015, p. 1), direct instruction, inauthentic assessment and rote learning are still common across many contexts, although these practices are not specific to particular sectors or subject areas. For example, in universities, lectures are still common in the early stages of undergraduate courses, and in schools some subject areas are more likely than others to adopt project-based or inquiry-based approaches. What is more, deterministic accounts of tools and spaces for learning tend to focus on identifying generic and decontextualised properties of tools or spaces, without considering the qualities of the objects themselves, and how these, in turn, may influence people, their values and purposeful action.In this article, we argue that those involved in educational design (e.g. teachers, space planners, architects, instructional designers) need analytical tools capable of increasing the correspondence between (a) pedagogy, place and people and (b) theory, design and practice. When we speak of correspondence, we draw on the work of Tim Ingold (2013), who contrasts interaction with correspondence, which he illustrates with a simple sketch: two fixed points with an arrow between them-representing interactionand two lines issuing from each of these points that flex in response to movement in the other-representing correspondence. Understanding how we use this term i...

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Shared Epistemic Agency: An Empirical Study of an Emergent Construct

Cited by 180 publications

References 36 publications

The multi-layered nature of small-group learning: Productive interactions in object-oriented collaboration

The multi-layered nature of small-group learning: Productive interactions in object-oriented collaboration

The psychological dimension of transformation in teacher learning

Framing learning entanglement in innovative learning spaces: Connecting theory, design and practice

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