Contemporary Educational Psychology 39 (2014) 1228

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Contemporary Educational Psychology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cedpsych

Modeling and measuring epistemic cognition: A qualitative

re-investigation
Jeffrey A. Greene , Seung B. Yu
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, CB#3500, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Since Perry rst proposed that students beliefs about knowledge and knowing were an important aspect
Available online 22 October 2013 of learning, there has been a proliferation of models of epistemic cognition, and empirical studies of how
epistemic cognition relates to learning. Unfortunately, the dominant means of measuring epistemic cog-
Keywords: nition, self-report instruments, have numerous psychometric problems. These problems prompted us to
History return to interview methods used by Perry and other seminal researchers, to investigate the degree to
Social studies which current epistemic cognition models aligned with novices and experts cognition. Using an explor-
Science
atory, multiple case qualitative design, we interviewed middle school students and university professors
Qualitative
Epistemic cognition
from two domains, biology and history. We found numerous ways in which the current conceptualiza-
tions and measures of beliefs about knowledge and knowing may need to be altered. Our recommenda-
tions range from the revision of item wordings to a complete rethinking of the very idea of domain-
specicity in epistemic cognition research.
2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. A qualitative investigation of expert and novice conceptions
of epistemic cognition in biology and history
Research into epistemic cognition (EC; Chinn, Buckland, &
Samarapungavan, 2011; Greene, Azevedo, & Torney-Purta, 2008;
Hofer & Pintrich, 1997, 2002; Kitchener, 2002; Sandoval & am,
2010) has increased exponentially since Perrys (1968/1999) sem-
inal phenomenological interview research on students beliefs
about knowledge and knowing (Hofer & Bendixen, 2012).
Researchers have asserted that differences in students EC inu-
ence a multitude of educational outcomes including academic
achievement (Buehl & Alexander, 2005; Greene, Muis, & Pieschl,
2010; Hofer, 2000; Schommer, Crouse, & Rhodes, 1992), self-regu-
lated learning (Brten & Stromso, 2005; Muis, 2007, 2008), web
searching (Tu, Shih, & Tsai, 2008) and scientic understanding
(Conley, Pintrich, Vekiri, & Harrison, 2004), among many others.
Unfortunately, concern about the psychometric adequacy of the
most frequently used measures of EC (i.e., self-report instruments)
is another common thread running through the relatively brief
history of this area of research (e.g., Buehl, 2008; Clarebout, Elen,
Luyten, & Bamps, 2001; DeBacker, Crowson, Beesley, Thoma, &
Hestevold, 2008; Greene et al., 2008; Hofer & Pintrich, 1997; Wood
& Kardash, 2002). The consistently poor evidence regarding the
Corresponding author. Address: Learning Sciences and Psychological Studies
Program, School of Education, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 113
Peabody Hall, CB#3500, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, United States. Fax: +1 919 843 2614.
E-mail address: jagreene@email.unc.edu (J.A. Greene).
reliability and factorial validity of inferences from scores from
self-report instruments of EC cast doubt upon the ndings of any
study that uses those instruments, including most of the ones that
have used quantitative analyses to relate students beliefs about
knowledge and knowing to academic outcomes and covariates
(Schraw & Olafson, 2008). Critically, if an instrument is not mea-
suring what researchers believe it is measuring (i.e., if psychomet-
ric analyses result in poor validity evidence), then relations
between scores on that instrument and any other outcome, such
as academic performance, become moot.
It is important to note that some researchers have avoided the
psychometric problems of self-report EC instruments by using
qualitative data collection and analysis techniques (e.g., Feucht &
Bendixen, 2010), or conducting quantitative investigations that
have used measures other than self-report such as think-aloud
protocols (e.g., Mason, Boldrin, & Ariasi, 2010) interviews (e.g.,
Sandoval & am, 2010) and observation (e.g., Rosenberg, Hammer,
& Phelan, 2006). While these studies are exempt from the psycho-
metric critiques described here, it is nonetheless the case that the
majority of work in the eld of EC over the last ten years has in-
volved quantitative analysis of scores from seemingly problematic
self-report instruments (DeBacker et al., 2008). Therefore, the eld
of EC research nds itself at a difcult crossroads: the number of
studies showing relations among epistemic cognition, learning
phenomena, and academic outcomes continues to grow, but poor
psychometric evidence for the adequacy of measures used in a
majority of these studies casts a dark cloud of doubt over their
ndings.

0361-476X/$ - see front matter 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2013.10.002
 J.A. Greene, S.B. Yu / Contemporary Educational Psychology 39 (2014) 1228
While there are many possible explanations for the current
state of affairs in EC research, three plausible reasons are that (a)
instrument developers need to rene the foci or wording of the
self-report items used to measure EC; (b) instrument developers
need to consider different ways of measuring EC (e.g., discontinue
using Likert-type items, capture student behaviors; Greene et al.,
2010; Hofer, 2004; Hofer & Sinatra, 2010; Muis, Bendixen, & Hae-
rle, 2006); or (c) the poor psychometric qualities of instruments
derived from conceptual models of EC indicate problems with
those models themselves. Researchers continue to explore the rst
two possible explanations (e.g., Greene, 2009; Greene et al., 2010;
Mason et al., 2010; Muis, 2008), and we applaud that work. This
study was conceived to investigate the third option. The purpose
of this study was to explore novices and experts EC, and assess
the ways in which current models did and did not align with our
participants EC. To do this, we employed interview methods sim-
ilar to those utilized by the progenitors of EC research, including
Perry (1968), King and Kitchener (1994), Belenky, Clinchy, Gold-
berger, and Tarule (1986), and Baxter Magolda (1992). We felt that
the open-ended, inductive, and exploratory nature of qualitative
research was necessary to investigate the conceptual foundations
and assumptions upon which researchers have built their quantita-
tive instruments. Such an investigation precludes generalization
and proclamation of trends, but does allow for the uncovering of
evidence that might otherwise be missed in quantitative analyses
where assessments are necessarily constructed from conceptual
models, and the assumptions underlying those models (Lewis &
Grimes, 1999). We sought to explore, at a deep, foundational level,
the models used to conceptualize EC, with the hope of nding po-
tential explanations for the poor psychometric results that plague
the eld.
2. Literature review
Within the paradigm of qualitative research, the literature re-
view plays a less signicant role in the design of empirical work than
it does in the quantitative paradigm (Creswell, 2008). While quali-
tative researchers are certainly informed as to the literature in their
respective elds, their focus on participant meaning making, open-
ended inquiry, and allowing themes to emerge from the data often
includes an intentional de-emphasis of prior theory, so that their
participants voices can be heard clearly. Given our wish to question
the underlying conceptual foundations of EC research, we used prior
literature to contextualize and motivate our work, but not circum-
scribe it. Therefore, here we provide an overarching summary of
EC models, the critiques that problematize those models and inspire
our work, and a discussion of how we used that literature to frame
our exploratory multiple-case study. Per the qualitative research
paradigm, this brief literature review will be supplemented in the
results section, where we will incorporate additional literature to
broaden, deepen, and contextualize our ndings (Mertens, 2010).
2.1. Models of epistemic cognition
While models of epistemic cognition are numerous and diverse,
three of the most prominent kinds are: developmental, multi-
dimensional, and situated resources-based. Developmental models
began with the work of Perry (1968/1999) who, after extensive
interviews with numerous male Harvard students, proposed that
college students progress along a continuum of positions that he
named dualism, multiplism, relativism, and commitment with rela-
tivism. Following Perrys work, other researchers produced their
own models of EC, each building their models off of data from inter-
views with students (e.g., Baxter Magolda, 1992; Belenky et al.,
1986; King & Kitchener, 1994; Kuhn, Cheney, & Weinstock, 2000).
While all of these models differed according to the framing of the
13
underlying construct, they had in common representations of
meaning making through hierarchical sequences of stage develop-
ment. Kuhns work is used extensively today, and is a good repre-
sentative of the developmental class of EC models. Her model
suggested movement from positions of realist, to absolutist, then
multiplist, and nally to evaluativist, describing a progression in
the engagement of knowledge that was roughly analogous to Perrys
model. The transitions from dualism to multiplism and from abso-
lutist to multiplist in the two models both represented a change
from purely objective to purely subjective views of knowledge. Rel-
ativism and evaluativist positions were characterized by a reconcil-
iation of the two extremes. These developmental models suggested,
among other things, that knowledge becomes increasingly contex-
tualized with progress along the developmental continuum.
The rst multi-dimensional model of EC was put forth by
Schommer (1990). It expanded the research eld by advocating
for a system of ve independent but related dimensions: xed abil-
ity, quick learning, simple knowledge, certain knowledge, and
omniscient authority (i.e., source of knowledge). Some researchers
(DeBacker et al., 2008; Hofer & Pintrich, 1997; Muis et al., 2006)
have claimed that the rst two dimensions extend beyond the
scope of epistemic concerns. The other three constructs cohere
with the dimensions proposed by Hofer and Pintrich (1997) who
categorized simple knowledge and certain knowledge as nature
of knowledge beliefs. Source of knowledge was categorized as a
nature of knowing belief. To this category, they added justica-
tion as a fourth aspect of the construct.
Simple knowledge refers to the view of knowledge as discrete
and unrelated facts. Learners along one end of the simple knowl-
edge dimension view facts as unconnected with each other, while
learners closer to the other end view facts as highly connected and
related. The certain knowledge dimension characterizes the views
of learners who consider knowledge as unchanging to be nave
while those who consider knowledge to be tentative and evolv-
ing (Hofer & Pintrich, 1997, p. 120) as sophisticated. At the nave
end of the source of knowledge dimension, knowledge is viewed as
originating outside of the self. Learners more advanced along this
dimension believe themselves to be progenitors of knowledge. Jus-
tication for knowing refers to the process of evaluating sources
and means of knowledge including observation, authority, rules,
and what feels right (Hofer, 2004, p. 46) at the time.
Hammer and Elby (2002, 2003) championed the situated re-
sources model and criticized the developmental and multidimen-
sional models inclusion of domain-general, static beliefs.
According to Hammer and Elby, learners epistemologies are actu-
ally ne-grained cognitive resources that exist at a level of specic-
ity beyond that of beliefs or theories. Learners display different
epistemic behavior based upon the context; in some situations a
particular set of cognitive resources may be activated, whereas in
a different context a very different set could be activated to inu-
ence learning. This view of EC differs greatly from many other mod-
els of EC particularly as it regards degree situatedness. Recently,
Chinn, Buckland, and Samarapungavan (2011) have proposed a dra-
matic expansion of the dimensions of EC to include components as
diverse as epistemic aims (i.e., peoples goals for inquiry such as
knowledge or truth), epistemic values (i.e., peoples beliefs about
the worth of different epistemic aims), and epistemic virtues (i.e.,
dispositions that are benecial in the pursuit of epistemic aims,
such as open-mindedness). They have also advocated for a consider-
ation of the situated nature of these EC components.
2.2. Recent critiques of models of epistemic cognition
2.2.1. The nature of knowledge
A majority of the dimensional models of EC include two specic
beliefs about the nature of knowledge: the degree to which it is
14 J.A. Greene, S.B. Yu / Contemporary Educational Psychology 39 (2014) 1228
simple and the degree to which it is certain. Murphy and col-
leagues (Murphy, 2005; Murphy & Alexander, 2004; Murphy, Alex-
ander, Greene, & Edwards, 2007) argued that these dimensions
were not epistemological, in the philosophical sense of the term.
Rather, they argued that the dimensions were better aligned with
the philosophical area of ontology (i.e., the study of reality and
the basic categories of being). Greene, Torney-Purta, & Azevedo
(2010) expanded upon this idea, arguing that Chis (1992) concep-
tualization of ontological categories and attributes was a more
appropriate way of thinking about learners beliefs about the nat-
ure of knowledge than the terms simple and certain. In short,
Chi argued that individuals possess an oftentimes non-conscious
ontology of the various different categories of knowledge within
an academic domain. Unique attributes differentiate these catego-
ries. For example, within a science ontology there may be different
categories for material substances and processes. The former
may have attributes such as has weight and occupies space
whereas the latter would have a different set of attributes such
as leads to change (cf., Chi, 1997). According to Greene and col-
leagues, EC researchers who are interested in the degree to which
individuals see knowledge as simple are really inquiring about
the complexity and accuracy of individuals ontologies; whereas
investigations into certain knowledge are more accurately de-
scribed as focusing upon the degree to which individuals are will-
ing to amend those categories and attributes in the light of new
evidence. Chinn, Buckland, and Samarapungavan (2011), on the
other hand, argued that these dimensions are ontological only for
realists, and that in all other cases are more appropriately de-
scribed as epistemological.
We were not interested in either proving or disproving whether
the nature of knowledge beliefs were best described as epistemo-
logical or ontological. Rather, what struck us about these argu-
ments was that it was possible that individuals beliefs about the
nature of knowledge might be far more complex than what could
be captured using just two dimensions: simple and certain (Chi,
1997; Chinn et al., 2011; Greene et al., 2008; Hammer & Elby,
2002, 2003). Therefore, we focused a portion of our interview pro-
tocol upon how participants thought about domain knowledge,
and endeavored to explore whether additional dimensions beyond
simple and certain were needed to describe their EC. To facili-
tate this discussion, we included a gure from Chis (1997) chapter
that graphically depicted an example ontology with categories and
attributes.
2.2.2. Domain-specicity
Perrys (1968/1999) initial model of EC has been described as
domain-general, although he did allow for the possibility of small
differences in beliefs across academic areas. Many researchers
working at the end of the 20th century posited similarly domain-
general models (e.g., King & Kitchener, 1994; Schommer, 1990).
Within the last ten years, many EC researchers have begun advo-
cating for examining multiple levels of EC, from domain-general
to domain-specic or even task-specic beliefs (Buehl & Alexander,
2005; Greene et al., 2008, 2010; Hofer, 2006; Muis et al., 2006;
Sandoval, 2009). At this point in the elds development, it is fair
to say that there has been a shift in the overall tenor of EC research
toward multiple-level conceptualizations, to the degree that Hofer
(2006) has called the domain-generality versus domain-specicity
debate pass (p. 67). Hammer and Elbys (2002, 2003) work rep-
resents the most explicit move away from a domain-general EC,
where epistemological resources are activated based upon context,
and may vary from task to task, and setting to setting, within the
same discipline or domain.
What we found interesting about the elds move toward the
inclusion of domain-specic EC was that many researchers created
multiple, domain-specic versions of their instruments that were
composed of substantively identical items. For example, Buehl,
Alexander, and Murphy (2002) followed the advice of two experts
in educational assessment evaluation when constructing domain-
specic versions of their EC measure:
These individuals recommended keeping the core wording
of items the same across domains to enhance comparability
and to reduce error variance. Thus, all items were rewritten
so that each item could apply to either domain with the
change of a single word. For example, the item, Mathematics
relates to day to day life, was rewritten as History relates
to day to day life. This process resulted in the elimination of
several items that could not easily be applied to both domains.
(p. 423)
Greene et al. (2010) followed a similar procedure for their
instrument, focusing on the domains of mathematics and history.
Other researchers (Hofer, 2000; Schommer & Walker, 1995) have
used the exact same items to measure EC in mathematics, the so-
cial sciences, and the hard sciences, by asking participants to think
about one academic area when lling out the instrument the rst
time, and to think about a different academic area when lling
out the same set of items a second time.
While these researchers have found interesting intraindivid-
ual item response patterns that sometimes differed across
domains, the underlying presumption in all of these studies
was that the underlying dimensions (e.g., simplicity of knowl-
edge, certainty of knowledge) were equally relevant in each
domain, and that there were no dimensions that were unique
to a particular academic domain. In contrast, we wondered
whether the actual dimensions of EC differed across
academic domains. For example, an individuals views on the
simplicity of knowledge may be very predictive of learning
in a science domain, but less so in history. Or, it may be that
simplicity means different things in different domains.
Perhaps additional, discipline-unique dimensions are needed.
Therefore, one of the things we wished to explore in our case
study was the nature of domain-specicity in EC, and whether
prior conceptualizations (e.g., identical dimensions across
domains) were adequately capturing individuals views about
knowledge and knowing across various academic domains. This
required that we conduct separate interviews with individuals
in two different academic contexts, which for this study were
biology and history.
2.2.3. Authorities as sources of knowledge
Numerous models of EC include the idea that nave individu-
als justify knowledge claims based upon what they learn from
authority gures, whereas sophisticated individuals rely on their
own means of justication such as rationality (Hofer & Pintrich,
1997; King & Kitchener, 1994; Schommer, 1990). Yet, within philo-
sophical epistemology there is a strong tradition of using authority
gures as justication (cf., Murphy et al., 2007). Chinn, Buckland,
and Samarapungavan (2011) pointed out that philosophers often
refer to the idea of testimony, rather than authority, to make clear
that experts may be acceptable sources of justication provided
that those experts have been properly vetted. Sandoval and am
(2010) showed that elementary school children differentiated be-
tween various sources of justication, privileging rsthand experi-
ences with collecting data above arguments from authority.
Research ndings such as these caused us to wonder whether EC
researchers positioning of justication by authority solely as a
nave belief (e.g., Schommer, 1990) needed to be reexamined.
We also wondered whether individuals differed in the degree to
which they privileged different kinds of authorities, such as do-
main experts, professors, teachers, and textbooks. As such, we in-
cluded questions in our interview protocol related to
 J.A. Greene, S.B. Yu / Contemporary Educational Psychology 39 (2014) 1228
participants beliefs about authority, and the justication of knowl-
edge claims using testimony.
2.2.4. When development begins
Many of the models of EC reviewed by Hofer and Pintrich
(1997) were based upon ndings that suggested that development
beyond the initial positions of EC does not begin until learners
reach college age. Chandler, Hallett, and Sokol (2002) presented
both a theoretical and an empirical argument against the idea that
EC remains xed until college, citing evidence of adolescents
engaging in relativist thinking (Boyes & Chandler, 1992; Chandler,
Boyes, & Ball, 1990). Likewise, Burr and Hofer (2002) have shown
that very young children display elements of EC, and that the pres-
ence of EC seemed to be related to childrens development of a the-
ory of mind (Flavell, 2004). Kuhn, Cheney, and Weinstock (2000),
as well as Mason and Scirica (2006), have also presented evidence
that students younger than college age are capable of engaging in
advanced EC. Sandoval (2005), among others, has argued for more
research into the development of EC. Therefore, these conceptual
and empirical arguments informed our choice of sample. Rather
than expecting college students to serve as sources of relatively
undeveloped EC, we worked with middle school students, who
we felt were old enough to have experienced academic domain dif-
ferences in school, but young enough to be likely to display rela-
tively undeveloped EC.
2.3. Framing our study as an exploratory case study
Each of the criticisms we described, as well as the concerns
about the psychometric qualities of EC self-report instruments,
led us to the conclusion that a thorough reexamination of EC,
and the conceptual models of these phenomena, was warranted.
These critiques informed how we constructed our investigation
of epistemic cognition, but we felt it important to move beyond
these critiques as well, and open up our investigation to every as-
pect of these models. The desire to query the foundations of episte-
mic cognition research, the need to be able to move beyond a priori
assumptions about EC in our questioning, and the aforementioned
difculties with self-report instruments, all led us to employ inter-
view methodologies similar to those used by the scholars who ini-
tiated the eld of epistemic cognition (i.e., Baxter Magolda, 1992;
Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986; King & Kitchener,
1994; Perry, 1968). The qualitative, multiple-case study interview
approach (Madill & Gough, 2008; Yin, 2006) of our investigation
enabled us to access student cognition in ways that mirrored the
exploratory, model-building methods used by these early EC
researchers (Hofer & Bendixen, 2012). Indeed, exploratory case
study designs are well-suited for questioning and possibly altering
established theories (e.g., Hofer, 2004). In our study, we used our
knowledge of current models of EC not as a prescription for under-
standing our participants beliefs about the nature of knowledge
and knowing, but rather as a permeable boundary that shaped
our initial questioning. We were particularly interested in partici-
pant responses that extended beyond this boundary, or called into
question the legitimacy of the boundary itself.
To ensure that we captured EC in all its forms, we explored both
university faculty members and middle-school students beliefs
about the nature of knowledge and knowing, and worked with par-
ticipants from two different academic disciplines, biology and his-
tory. To examine the ways in which EC varied as a function of prior
knowledge and experience, or not, we chose to work with two
groups of participants who greatly differed in their level of experi-
ence, or presumed expertise, in the domain (i.e., middle-school stu-
dents and university faculty members). Our choice of disciplines
(i.e., biology and history) was made based upon several factors.
First, both disciplines are included in most middle school curricula,
15
so student participants would be familiar enough with the content
to respond. Second, we chose disciplines that have distinct per-
spectives on knowledge and knowing so that we could examine
the ways in which EC across disciplines differed in degree, kind,
or both. Biology has traditionally been considered a hard (Biglan,
1973) or well-structured (Frederiksen, 1984) discipline, whereas
history has traditionally been considered a soft or ill-struc-
tured discipline. Through our choices of participants and disci-
plines, we hoped to uncover evidence that could be used to
problematize current models of EC, and perhaps lead to benecial
changes to those models, from minor tweaks to major renements.
Ultimately, it was our hope that these rened conceptual models of
EC could lead to development of quantitative instruments with
strong psychometric qualities that would better examine how EC
relates to learning phenomena and outcomes.
3. Methods
3.1. Participants
For this exploratory multiple-case study, intense case sampling
(Creswell, 2008; Yin, 2006) was utilized. The cases for this study,
middle-school students and university faculty members, were
solicited to exhibit a wide variety of EC so that the phenomenon
could be better understood than if our sample included partici-
pants that were likely to share similar EC. Multiple cases were re-
quired to do this type of sampling. In addition, we sought
participants from two different academic domains, biology and
history, so that we could examine domain differences in EC. We
conducted 16 interviews: two with university faculty in biology,
two with university faculty in history, six with middle-school stu-
dents of biology, and six with middle-school students of history.
Our sample included four faculty members, two from a biology
department, and two from a history department, at a large, public
university in the Southeast. The faculty members included two wo-
men and two men. We sought faculty members with little to no
background in education or philosophy, with the hope of capturing
a set of relatively unbiased responses to questions about epistemic
cognition.
We recruited middle school students in the same county.
Approximately 70% of the county population identied as White,
non-Hispanic, 12% identied as Black, 8% identied as Hispanic
or Latino, and 7% identied as Asian. Median household income
was approximately $56,000, with roughly 17% of the population
reporting as below the poverty level. The school itself was located
near a mid-sized town in this predominantly rural county, and was
one of three middle-schools serving that county. Interview data
were collected in the second, Spring semester of the school year.
The researchers, upon entering the school and after working within
it frequently over the course of several weeks, saw it as a welcom-
ing, well-run environment where students seemed comfortable yet
focused. Teachers appeared to have little difculty managing their
classrooms, and there were no disruptions or other egregious inci-
dents at any point during data collection. Interviews took place in
an extra classroom in the school, which was being used to store
SmartBoards that had been recently purchased for each classroom
in the building.
Middle school student participants were recruited through one
history and one biology teacher. Each teacher nominated 10 typi-
cally-functioning students who they believed would be able to
articulate their beliefs about knowledge and knowing in the do-
main. We asked teachers to nominate a group of students whose
aggregate demographic prole would approximate that of the
school as a whole. There was no coordination between teachers
regarding student nomination. These students were from multiple
16 J.A. Greene, S.B. Yu / Contemporary Educational Psychology 39 (2014) 1228
sections of each teachers course, but these sections did not inten-
tionally differ in terms of average student performance (i.e., they
were not tracked). The teachers happened to teach different stu-
dents, thus there was no overlap in terms of student nominations
across classes. Given our interest in understanding students EC
as it was displayed through our dialog with them, we did not re-
quest that teachers select for, or provide us, information regarding
academic performance or any other demographic information. For
each teacher, six of the 10 students returned signed consent forms
and agreed to participate in the study.
The 8th grade participants consisted of eight girls and four boys
(i.e., 5 girls from the history course, 3 girls from the biology
course). As mentioned previously, we chose 8th grade students be-
cause we felt they were far enough along in their schooling to have
experienced disciplinary differences, but not so experienced that
explicit instruction or discussion regarding epistemic cognition
within the discipline would have been likely. Discussions with
their teachers indicated that while the teachers included disciplin-
ary practices (e.g., experimentation and replication in biology;
explanatory power in history) in their instruction, students were
not exposed to terminology from, or models of, epistemic cognition
research.
3.2. Protocols
We used semi-structured interviews to investigate our partici-
pants EC. These interviews occurred over a three-month period
to accommodate the teachers schedules and school holidays. The
interviews themselves ranged from 18 to 27 min for the students
and 49 to 53 min for the professors. Each interview was conducted
individually with either one or two researchers and the participant.
Semi-structured interview protocols were used to minimize inter-
viewer effects (Patton, 2002) but researchers were encouraged to
deviate from the protocol as needed, and probe participant re-
sponses for relevant information (see Appendices A and B). Each
participant was asked each of the questions listed in the appendi-
ces, however, interviewers were encouraged to ask follow-up ques-
tions (i.e., probes) to clarify or expand participants responses
when appropriate (Patton, 2002). What makes the interview
semi-structured was the ability to alter the wording of the ques-
tions, and add probes, to ensure that participants EC was surfaced
and explored as thoroughly as possible. There were times where a
participants response to one question or probe resulted in a suf-
ciently clear answer to another question, in which case the
researchers may have asked an amended version of the other ques-
tion that was appropriate given the dialog. Our goal was to explore
participants EC, therefore while we ensured that each participant
was asked about each underlying construct of interest, we followed
qualitative interview techniques and allowed for probes into par-
ticularly interesting or important statements that arose from the
interview (Patton, 2002).
The interview protocols differed by domain of knowledge (i.e.,
biology versus history) and level of experience within domain of
knowledge (i.e., middle-school student versus faculty member).
However, the protocols were designed to address the same core is-
sues. The middle-school protocol (see Appendix A) included ques-
tions about the participants impressions of their classes, their
beliefs about what their teachers wanted them to learn, their be-
liefs about the nature of knowledge in the domain, and how they
went about justifying knowledge claims. However, the actual ques-
tions included terminology that we thought would be more famil-
iar for middle-school students. Though we have questioned data
collection procedures that merely interchange domain names (Sec-
tion 2.2.2), we replicated a similar protocol in this study because
we considered it important for helping to unearth possible differ-
ences between responses from students referring to different
domains. We also had domain-specic questions, which could
have lead to other probes at a similar level of specicity. Each mid-
dle-school student participant was interviewed regarding a single
discipline, based upon the class from which the participant was re-
cruited. Therefore, participants recruited from a biology class were
interviewed about biology only, and the same for participants from
history classes.
The interview protocols for the faculty members (see Appendix
B) included questions regarding what participants believed stu-
dents needed to know to be knowledgeable in the domain, their
beliefs about the nature of knowledge in the domain, how knowl-
edge in the domain benetted society, and how they went about
justifying knowledge claims. We also had domain-specic ques-
tions for faculty members. At the conclusion of each interview
we asked the participant whether there were any other important
points that we had not covered.
3.3. Procedure
Middle-school student participants were recruited in person.
The rst author went to the teachers classes, explained the study,
and provided students with parental consent forms to take home.
Students who returned signed consent forms were also given a
personal assent form to read and sign. Participants were inter-
viewed during their class time, in a separate room. Either the rst
author or a trained graduate student interviewed each participant.
Participants were told they could end the study at any time, for any
reason; none chose to do so.
Faculty participants were recruited via email from a large public
university in the southeastern United States. The rst author re-
viewed academic department websites for a list of potential partic-
ipants. Faculty members who consented to participate were
interviewed either in their campus ofce or in the rst authors of-
ce. Although none chose to do so, all participants were informed
that they could end the study at any time, for any reason.
Interviews were audio-taped so that the researchers could focus
on the participants responses, rather than having to take notes.
These audio-tapes also ensured that participant data were cap-
tured accurately for later analysis. During all of the interviews,
researchers were free to take reective eld notes regarding their
observations. There was also time in between interviews and after
each interview session to write down additional eld notes. These
eld notes were included as data sources during analysis.
Identifying information for each participant, aside from infor-
mation about their domain (i.e., history or biology) and experience
level (i.e., middle-school or faculty), were securely stored sepa-
rately from the rest of the data. All interviews were transcribed
by a trained graduate student. The rst and second author listened
to each audio-tape while reviewing the transcriptions, to ensure
accuracy.
3.4. Data analysis and authenticity
Interview data were analyzed independently by the rst and
second authors. Data analysis occurred during data collection,
informing probes for future interviews, and after data collection
had ended. The authors independently hand-sorted the data, read-
ing and rereading the transcriptions to identify relevant participant
responses and eld notes. Relevant text segments were categorized
using in vivo coding or low-inference indicators, with the goal of
keeping the codes as representative of the participants meaning
as possible. As the authors engaged in coding the data, they kept
separate lists of important ndings from the data, as well as what
the data did not elucidate (e.g., see Section 4.2). The researchers
also endeavored to be reexive about their analysis, and let the
data speak rather than forcing their own ideas onto the data
 J.A. Greene, S.B. Yu / Contemporary Educational Psychology 39 (2014) 1228
(Patton, 2002). Segments of data were grouped under common
codes, and then codes were combined into overarching themes
(Creswell, 2008). The data collection portion of the study ended
when the authors felt that the data were saturated and that
redundancy had been reached.
The rst and second authors met frequently to discuss codes
and themes derived from the data. As themes were developed,
each author went back to the data to clarify, deepen, and question
codes and themes. This iterative process allowed both researchers
to question their understanding of EC in general, as well as the data
collected from the participants. As interviews progressed, the
authors began seeing redundancy. Within the context of the initial
set of interviews, we felt that saturation was reached and conse-
quent data analysis did not result in a sense that additional data
were required. The themes reported here were agreed upon by
both authors as relevant and accurate depictions of the partici-
pants EC. However, it is important to note that there were numer-
ous interindividual differences among participants, as expected.
The authors engaged in triangulation among sources and analysis
in an attempt to ensure the authenticity of their inferences and
data presentation. The second author, having not collected the data
personally, acted as a peer debriefer for the rst author. Therefore,
we utilized numerous techniques for establishing the authenticity
of our data representation and analyses, including semi-structured
interviewing with probes, in vivo coding, triangulation of data, and
peer debrieng. The authors also disciplined their subjectivity by
critically examining their own positionality throughout the data
analysis process (Creswell, 2008; Patton, 2002).
3.5. Positionality
The rst author is a Caucasian male faculty member at a state
university who has studied EC. He has published both conceptual
and empirical articles, as well as book chapters, on EC, and has
been involved in numerous conference presentations on the topic.
As such, he was careful to be reective about his own beliefs about
EC, and to endeavor to hear participants voices, rather than impos-
ing his own ideas about what he thought they were saying. The
rst author also thought it was important that he triangulate his
inferences with those of another researcher, a version of peer
debrieng. Therefore, he recruited and trained the second author,
who did not engage in any of the interviewing, to analyze the data
from his own perspective. In addition, the rst author was aware of
his status as an adult faculty member, which might have affected
how middle school participants responded to him. Efforts were
made to establish rapport and help the participant feel comfortable
when responding (Creswell, 2008).
The second author is an Asian-American male graduate student
at a large university whose primary research interest is EC. Being
relatively new to the eld, his own conceptions have been much
less inuenced by the EC literature than the conceptions of the rst
author. He came to the study with a previously developed interest
in philosophy, signicant experience teaching language, and many
years residing in multi-cultural settings. This background was
brought to bear on his interpretations of the interview data against
pre-established constructs and theories.
4. Results
Here we present a review of the themes we inferred from our
data analyses. These themes include empirical ndings related to
the nature of knowledge, ontological categories, the nature of
knowing, domain commonalities and differences, and EC develop-
ment. Each of these themes are described using quotations from
our data, and elaborations from our codes and notes.
17
4.1. The nature of knowledge
4.1.1. Simple knowledge is not so simple
One of the rst questions we asked each of our professor partic-
ipants was what they believed to be the important kinds of knowl-
edge in their domain:
Biology Professor #1: The dates, the names of things being sort
of a given, acknowledging that that is a kind of knowledge, a
sort of naming kind of knowledge. But when I think of what
makes biology biology, you have to know the connections
between those things. So thats to me the most important kind
of knowledge.
Our history professor participants shared similar views. Declar-
ative knowledge (Schraw, 2006) was mentioned: I dont think
anybody who takes a U.S. history course should be able to pass a
course if they dont know what the 14th amendment is. So thats
that core bedrock knowledge (History Professor #1). However,
both history professors stressed that while factual knowledge
was necessary, it was also the least interesting or important kind
of knowledge in terms of historical expertise:
History Professor #1: And so, with that example of the 14th
amendment, I try to tell them, I want you to know what the
14th amendment is about, but I want you to know whats
important about the 14th amendment. So, just saying when it
was written, when it was adopted, and whats in the 14th
amendment, thats three quarters of the way. Then youve gotta
come with why it matters.
History Professor #2: History students, let me say, undergradu-
ate students tend to think of history very much as the facts, they
consider it a list of information, of very uninteresting sorts of
information that they need to memorize. . . and historians tend
to think. . . facts are kind of a low priority.
These professors clearly ascribed epistemic value, albeit a rela-
tively low value, to declarative knowledge. Yet, each professor
mentioned procedural knowledge as another, perhaps more impor-
tant kind of knowledge in the domain. The rst biology professor
referred to skill knowledge and mentioned basic procedural
knowledge like pipetting as well as more advanced problem solv-
ing skills. The history professors stressed the importance of stu-
dents learning various interpretative and argumentation skills,
along with historical empathy and perspective taking (Hartmann
& Hasselhorn, 2008). Our history professors distinctions among
various types of knowledge aligned with work in history education,
including rst-order substantive knowledge, second-order sub-
stantive knowledge, and procedural knowledge (VanSledright &
Limn, 2006). First-order substantive knowledge includes the
what of history whereas second-order substantive knowledge in-
cludes concepts and metatheories that historians use to under-
stand history.
In both domains, our faculty most emphasized knowledge deal-
ing with context and relationships over and above independent
facts. An appropriate collection and systematization of these var-
ious kinds of knowledge privies experts to what some have called
principled knowledge (i.e., well-integrated domain knowledge;
Alexander, 2003; Gelman & Greeno, 1989; Lampert, 1986). Princi-
pled knowledge allows experts to navigate the constraints of a do-
main, engage primary-source historical documents or new
scientic discoveries through the lens of their respective disci-
plines, and create new and meaningful connections between ideas.
Among our middle school participants, there were a number
whose beliefs matched what our professors had grown accustomed
to seeing in novice learners: a focus on declarative knowledge. For
example, the most common types of knowledge mentioned by our
18 J.A. Greene, S.B. Yu / Contemporary Educational Psychology 39 (2014) 1228
middle school history participants were historical events, dates,
and people: Most of the time you dont really have to know the
persons perspective, you just have to know what happened to
really know the history (History Student #4). However, there
were also quite a few middle school students who expressed be-
liefs at a more advanced level than what might be predicted from
models of EC:
History Student #2: And I think with the general facts and
stuff a lot of the facts, you know, some of the basic facts of
who did this and why they did that, arent as important to me
as you know, the broad, like the World War I and why that
happened.
This focus upon conceptual knowledge, and in particular histor-
ical themes, was certainly not expected based upon EC models and
our interviews with history professors. Some of our middle school
students also privileged procedural knowledge like historical
empathy skills:
History Student #1: If you dont know how [historical gures]
were thinking back then and how they were feeling then. . . you
wont be as good in history, because you kinda, you gotta know
how theyre thinking and know what theyre feeling to really
understand them. Like, I mean. . . like some of the former presi-
dents, you might think theyre a bad president because of some
stuff they did, but if you think about maybe how they were feel-
ing or what their situation was, you might kinda sway the other
way, think theyre pretty good for what they did.
In sum, all of our faculty, and even some of our middle-school
students, interpreted the word knowledge as referring to much
more than declarative knowledge.
We believe these responses highlight a potential gap in
models of EC, and in particular how the nature of knowledge is
conceptualized. Our respondents discussion of multiple types of
knowledge, including declarative, procedural, and principled
knowledge, supported Chinn et al. (2011) assertion that research-
ers should examine how individuals EC may vary across these
types of knowledge. It may be that researchers presumptions
about how sophisticated it is to agree that knowledge is
simple need to be moderated depending upon whether the
knowledge in question is declarative, procedural, or conceptual.
Our faculty seemed to suggest that declarative knowledge in their
domains was relatively simple, meaning that this is a fairly
sophisticated belief, or at least not correctly characterized as
a nave one. Faculty members did not characterize procedural
or principled knowledge as simple, however, whereas some
student participants either did see these kinds of knowledge
claims as simple (i.e., individual knowledge claims relatively
unconnected from one another), or did not mention them at all.
Given this, it may be that beliefs about the simplicity of proce-
dural or principled knowledge develop over time, but beliefs
about declarative knowledge do not.
In terms of measurement, we are aware of no EC instrument
with specic items addressing different classications of knowl-
edge (e.g., declarative, procedural, and principled). Items such as
When I study I look for specic facts (Schommer, 1990, p. 500)
may lead individuals with advanced levels of EC to respond in a
nave manner (e.g., strongly agree with the item) because it is
possible that they do indeed, look for facts (i.e., our History profes-
sors bedrock knowledge), but only as one kind of knowledge
among many. Further, items such as To know [math/history] well,
you need to memorize what you are taught (Greene et al., 2010, p.
251) seem problematically vague, because participants may re-
spond differently depending upon whether they infer that the item
refers to declarative, procedural, or principled knowledge.
4.1.2. Certain knowledge is also not so simple
Our expert participants had strong reactions to questions about
whether knowledge in their domain was certain:
History Professor #1: Oh, not at all. Utterly uncertain. [laughter]
And you could say that the level of certainty thats achievable
for any particular historical fact. . . exists in inverse proportion
to its importance. The more important something is, the less
acceptable it is to be actually known.
The other professors in our sample shared similar views, with
the biologists focusing upon defeasibility as a key aspect of scien-
tic inquiry. Perhaps predictably, some of our middle school stu-
dents saw knowledge as xed:
Interviewer: Ok, so, think about your history book that you have
now and one that might be written twenty years from now. Do
you think that theyre going to say the same things, like in terms
of the American Revolution or the World War I?
History Student #4: Um, yeah. I think theyll say the same thing
in terms of those. Maybe not the exact words but theyll
have the general information, the dates, the events. . . I think
theyll have those the same. Theyll add new stuff, yeah, but I
think the events and stuffll be pretty much the same because,
its not still going on. Its not really much information you can
add.
On the other hand, some of our student participants believed
that particular types of knowledge changed over time, while other
kinds did not:
Biology Student #1: The laws never really change or they
havent yet, I dont really think they ever will. . . sometimes
facts change too, like over time. . . I know that there are certain
animal facts that have changed. Like theyve said that theres a
certain amount of animals, but theyve discovered more.
Biology Student #3: Certain things. . . I think were really sure
about. And certain things were not. Like were not really sure
about evolution. . . Were sure about the processes that we
know, that make sense, theyre logical, and we have evidence
to back it up. We dont really have evidence of we dont have
multiple evidences of how things can happen for evolution that
we dont really know. So the things that we have a lot of evi-
dence and not really a lot of conicting things on like people
dont have a lot of different sort of opinions about photosynthe-
sis. People dont think it occurs differently. We dont debate
photosynthesis in science class, because it kind of just explains
things and it makes sense.
What intrigued us about these statements, and what is particu-
larly relevant to models of EC, is that our faculty, and a subset of
our middle school students, did acknowledge that different kinds
of knowledge have varying degrees of certainty. Similar to the
argument we made previously about simple knowledge dimen-
sions in EC models, our participants responses suggested that
believing knowledge, as a general concept, is certain is not a
reliable indicator of naivety. Again, researchers who wish to evalu-
ate participants belief in certain knowledge should carefully con-
sider clarifying the kind of knowledge claim (i.e., declarative,
procedural, principled) they use to tap this belief. Items such as
In [math/history], what is a fact today will be a fact tomorrow
(Greene et al., 2010, p. 251) are unlikely to be valid indicators of
epistemic sophistication given that respondents interpretations
of the word fact could vary between declarative, procedural,
and principled knowledge. Alternative words for fact like the
word truth may be too general to yield accurate, consistent
responses as well, for example: Truth is unchanging in this
 J.A. Greene, S.B. Yu / Contemporary Educational Psychology 39 (2014) 1228
subject (Hofer, 2000, p. 390). Such variance likely adds signicant,
and systematic, measurement error to scores from these EC
instruments.
4.1.3. Epistemic values
Our expert participants clearly had both implicit and explicit
values regarding different kinds of knowledge in their domains:
History Professor #2: So, I try to emphasize to [students] that
there are these orders of, of knowledge, a hierarchy. . . thats
the biggest challenge. . . you can see it in the way they underline
the textbook. Theyre essentially virtually underlining without
any obvious sense of hierarchy. So, theyre trying to learn things
that they dont need to know.
Many of the quotes presented in this article illustrate that our
professors were frustrated that their students were focused upon
the wrong kinds of knowledge, i.e., declarative facts rather
than conceptual or principled knowledge.
History Professor #2: [The students] idea of what it is that
theyre going to be tested on is so different from what it is that
Im going to be asking that I have to gradually nudge them, pull
them from what it is that they think history is about and what it
is that we do.
Our biology faculty wanted their students to be able to see con-
nections between declarative knowledge concepts, to put things
together in [their] mind and engage in internal problem solving
(Biology Professor #1). The history professors stressed that stu-
dents needed to learn to think analytically and develop cogent
analysis of the relationship between whatever set of historical
events they are interested in (History Professor #2). Rather than
memorizing large quantities of disconnected information, our fac-
ulty members hoped for their students to participate in conceptual
thinking that utilized an understanding of the principles underly-
ing and permeating their disciplines. One history professor empha-
sized that historians were most interested in themes like
colonialism that had both specic applicability to particular histor-
ical events as well as general utility in terms of providing plausible
hypotheses regarding why other historical events occurred. The
epistemic value of well-argued interpretations, above the discov-
ery of historical facts, was clear:
History Professor #2: Some students tend to think that theres
going to be the killer fact, that if you just know that fact thats
going to explain this thing or the classic example of conspiracy
theory. . . (what) I love about history is its playful. . . There are
certain things that are beyond the boundaries. You cannot argue
that the holocaust didnt happen. Thats arguing factual evi-
dence and the only reason someone would make that argument
is for, obviously, political ends. Um, but within the bounds of
why the holocaust happened, my word!
The issue of what kinds of knowledge were valued was also re-
lated to the certainty of that knowledge.
Interviewer: So in terms of the value of knowledge, it sounds
like students tend to value things that they feel they can be cer-
tain about, whereas people who are more advanced at history
tend to value interpretations, argumentative structure, context,
is that. . . accurate?
History Professor #1: Yeah.
Clearly, our professors valued different kinds of knowledge than
their students, as well as some of the middle school students in our
sample. This difference between our faculty and novices aligns
with Leinhardt et al. (1994) ndings that nave views of knowl-
edge in history included the belief that events were more
19
important than structures, themes and metasystems, whereas
sophisticated beliefs were just the opposite. Our ndings regard-
ing differences in terms of what kinds of knowledge that middle-
school students and faculty valued also align with the work of
Chinn, Buckland, and Samarapungavan (2011), who identied
epistemic value as one of many ideas from philosophical episte-
mology that might be protably transferred to psychological inves-
tigations of EC. It may be that epistemic values regarding
declarative, procedural, and principled knowledge act as strong
discriminators between novices and experts.
4.2. Ontological categories
Interviews with our biology area participants incorporated a
diagram of science domain ontology (Chi, 1992). To our surprise,
it did not help clarify our discussions or the middle-school stu-
dents understanding. Our biology facultys responses were mixed.
They gave positive feedback on the idea of ontological categories
and the explicit teaching of their attributes. The Chi diagram was
acknowledged as being potentially useful to help students orga-
nize and see common threads (Biology Professor #2) and to help
them memorize less because of greater understanding (Biology
Professor #1). On the other hand, our faculty admitted to not being
aware of ontologies in general or the scheme laid out in the dia-
gram. One even suggested re-arrangements that challenged the
ontologys accuracy:
Interviewer: But, in terms of these broad categories, are there
categories missing?
Biology Expert #2: (Viewing the diagram) Um, substances, pro-
cesses... now of course I would say that this would be a process,
but. . .
Interviewer: The mental state.
Biology Expert #2: The mental states would be processes. Um.
Interviewer: Why would, why would you say thats a process?
Biology Expert #2: I guess because its, its a. . . Its a, um, prod-
uct of a chemical, you know, a chemical in a certain region of
the brain. . .. Um, substances, processes, I guess if you had some-
thing like a, um. . . something like a, uh, maybe a category of
forces, if that would be the right word, that is involved in, um,
prompting or required for, you know, the material things to
do certain processes.
Among the middle school students, even after some explicit
verbal explanation by the interviewer, none of their reactions sug-
gested an accurate understanding of the ontology or its purpose.
The following exchange is an example of the students confusion:
Biology Student #3: I think that a mental state would be a the-
ory, because you cant really know what state youre in.
Interviewer: Mm-hmm.
Biology Student #3: I think that that would be a fact, and that
would be a law. (Pointing at parts of the diagram.)
Interviewer: So, processes are facts.
Biology Student #3: Yes.
Interviewer: And, substances are laws.
Biology Student #3: Yes.
From interviews with both faculty and students, we were left
with the impression that the ontology diagram was not a helpful
tool for these particular participants in their respective contexts.
We expected quite the opposite: that participants would gravitate
toward what we perceived to be an effective way of thinking about
how knowledge in a discipline is structured. Nonetheless, our pur-
pose with this study was to explore participants EC, and disci-
plined subjectivity requires that we report both data that we
expected to nd, as well as unexpected data, including data that
20 J.A. Greene, S.B. Yu / Contemporary Educational Psychology 39 (2014) 1228
contradicts our past work (Mertens, 2010). In terms of these nd-
ings, it may well be that while ontological categories underlies
conscious conceptualizations, it is implicit and deeply engrained
to the point that even an explicit taxonomy or systemization
may not be immediately recognizable unless it is packaged by a
formatting scheme and terminology that is familiar to experts or
students.
4.3. Domain commonalities and differences
Across domains, the language that participants used to talk
about knowledge was both similar and different. Three of our four
professors specically mentioned the word fact when describing
what they considered to be the basic, low-level and somewhat
uninteresting knowledge in their eld. The biology professors
examples of facts focused upon denitions, whereas the historians
referred to historical events, people, and places. The following
quotes reect the perceived nature and larger purpose of facts that
was consistent among all of our experts: a fact is usually one
[unrelated] item (Biology Professor #1); I tend to assign things,
secondary readings, which are not really about facts that they
should know, but opportunities for them to try out their interpre-
tive skills (History Professor #1).
In addition, the distinctions between low-level and high-
level knowledge were described similarly across domains:
History Professor #1: Someone might say that the discovery of
Brazil and the planting of sugarcane in Brazil were equally fac-
tually part of the European colonization of the world. . . So, its
not so much a difference in the status as regarding whether
its fact or not, but as regarding the power and the reach,
explanatory potential of the idea, so that when you get to the
idea that sugarcane was. . . grown in Brazil and, you might even
add that it was very important to the Brazilian economy, thats
certainly helpful in understanding Brazil. You know it really
does get you somewhere and it explains among other things. . . -
why so many people in Brazil are of African descent, because
slaves and sugarcane went together basically. . . So there is cer-
tainly something, there is explanatory power that is interesting.
But then if you move further out and say. . . the discovery of Bra-
zil and planting sugarcane are both things that help us under-
stand colonialism as a process, then the complexity of that
idea and the interpretive reach of that idea, both of those things
are much greater. So theres a lot more that you can say about
colonialism not involving sugarcane at all.
Biology Professor #1: You might know what DNA is and you
might know what nucleotides are and you might know what
genes are, in terms of being able to dene each of those. . . but
you have to be able to know how they work together, that
DNA is part of the chromosome and it is, a length of it is a gene,
and how those t together, those connections. . . Because again,
you could say DNA carries the genetic code that is something it
does, but to me thats a fact. . . Thats not an explanation. The
real relationship between DNA and the code, theres sort of a
richer part that would again in my mind at least involve con-
necting it with mutation.
Our historians saw the use of themes as a way of connecting
and explaining historical actions and events, and our biologists
saw the use of theories (e.g., mutation) as a way of connecting
and explaining the relationships between biological phenomena.
Each of our experts saw facts, the things that middle-school stu-
dents tend to focus upon, as necessary but not nearly sufcient
materials that were used to build high-level knowledge:
History Professor #1: The facts are simply. . . something that
allowed [students] to work with these ideas, as if, for example
you want them to learn to do an equation, and in order to do
an equation, theyll have to use lots of numbers, but whatever
its not important, remembering the numbers has nothing to
do with whats important about equations. Knowing how to
work the equations. And thats something that I think that
many, many students never quite get.
On the other hand, the ways that the experts in each domain de-
scribed high-level knowledge predictably varied. Our biology
professors talked about connections between ideas, and the pro-
cedural knowledge needed to conduct science (e.g., experimenta-
tion skills, the mechanics of working in a lab setting, etc.). When
asked what kinds of knowledge were important in history, our pro-
fessors mentioned words like interpretations and themes that
helped create plausible explanations for societal behavior that had
both specicity and elasticity (History Professor #2). The profes-
sors also discussed the importance of having certain kinds of pro-
cedural knowledge that were specic to history such as historical
perspective taking or historical empathy skills (Hartmann &
Hasselhorn, 2008).
When comparing the language used by our experts with the
language of models of EC, and their associated instruments, we
found that nave views of the nature of knowledge were well de-
scribed. It seemed likely that all of the experts would recoil at
the characterization of knowledge in their domain as an accumu-
lation of facts (Hofer & Pintrich, 1997, p. 120). What seems to be
missing in models of EC, however, are specic descriptions of ad-
vanced beliefs about the nature of knowledge within domains.
While there is clearly a web of connections (Biology Professor
#1) among building-block ideas in the respective domains, concep-
tual and principled knowledge seemed to be constructed differ-
ently in biology and history. Likewise, if the nature of knowledge
factors are broadened to include procedural knowledge, then do-
main differences become even more salient. It is difcult to imag-
ine a domain-general denition of the nature of knowledge factors
that could capture advanced experimentation skills in biology as
well as historical empathy skills in history. This difference in the
specic procedural knowledge relevant to these domains was
acknowledged by one of our historians:
History Professor #2: I have not gured out how to help stu-
dents who may be extremely adept at working through a model
of knowledge. . . grounded in the scientic approach. . . history is
very different.
Overall, our comparisons of how experts in biology and history
talked about the nature of knowledge in their domains revealed
strong similarities in terms of nave beliefs. There was also some
congruence across domains regarding the purpose of high-level
knowledge: to connect and explain relations among low-level
facts. However, when comparing our facultys responses to the
denitions in models of EC, it was clear that nave beliefs were suf-
ciently described, but sophisticated beliefs about procedural and
conceptual knowledge were underspecied.
Our results cohere to some degree with the work of Samara-
pungavan, Westby, and Bodner (2006), who found that chemis-
try researchers epistemic beliefs, disciplinary knowledge, and
inquiry practices were all chemistry-specic, rather than sci-
ence-specic (i.e., common epistemic practices across physics,
chemistry, and biology, among other hard sciences) or domain-
general. Those authors argued that it is unlikely that there are
domain-general or even science-specic epistemic beliefs, as
posited by some educational psychologists (e.g., Schommer &
Walker, 1995). Rather, the work of Samarapungavan and col-
leagues supports the work of Hammer and Elby (2002), who ar-
gued that students rely upon ne-grained epistemic resources
that exist at the setting or task level. While our ndings suggest
 J.A. Greene, S.B. Yu / Contemporary Educational Psychology 39 (2014) 1228
that much more attention needs to be paid to domain-specicity,
including, perhaps, the introduction of some number of task-spe-
cic dimensions of EC, it is not yet clear whether there are abso-
lutely no EC dimensions that generalize across domains. What is
clear is that EC researchers must take seriously the possibility
that intraindividual differences on common EC dimensions
across domains (e.g., participants scoring high on simple knowl-
edge in science but low on similar items in history) may not be
capturing all of the relevant variance regarding how individuals
EC differs across domains, tasks, and settings. Clearly, more re-
search is needed in this area.
4.4. The nature of knowing
4.4.1. Expert perspectives on justication and authority
When talking about sophisticated and valued knowledge in
their domains, our faculty acknowledged the tentative, contingent,
and defeasible nature of these claims:
Biology Professor #1: Theories are the big overarching things
that we hold as fundamentally true always acknowledging the
tentativeness of science, that theres a chance theyre not true
but its where were going today and its what were basing
our understanding on today.
As Greene et al. (2008) have argued, an acknowledgment of
defeasibility increases the importance of establishing the means
of justication in a eld. Therefore, we asked specic questions
about how these faculty validated knowledge claims qua
knowledge.
The biology professors in our sample mentioned peer-reviewed
journal publications as a salient, but not entirely sufcient,
means of justifying of knowledge claims:
Biology Professor #2: I mean I think authority is a big, is a big
determiner of what we come to say is knowledge, um, only
because its such a, its such a peer-reviewed system. But I dont
think theres a sense of authority where [a] Nobel person can
say something and everybody will just believe it; theyll say,
well show me the evidence.
These faculty seemed to view the peer-review process as a
proxy for doing their own verication of the legitimacy of a knowl-
edge claim. Given the impracticality of conducting their own inves-
tigations of every study published, these faculty relied on their
peers to review the submitted studies for rigor and only accept
those that were worthy of achieving knowledge status.
Both of our biology professors listed a number of other kinds of
justication for a knowledge claim beyond publication in peer-re-
viewed journals, including replication studies, and predictability
(Biology Professor #1). The latter term was described as the degree
to which a knowledge claim cohered with other knowledge claims,
and proved helpful in predicting additional phenomena. These per-
spectives aligned well with the work of Murphy, Alexander,
Greene, and Edwards (2007), who found similar ideas (i.e., coher-
ence and reliabilism) among the kinds of justication discussed
within philosophical epistemology. Overall, our biology professors
appeared to take a reasonably skeptical stance toward knowledge
claims, requiring a preponderance of evidence (e.g., peer-review,
replication, coherence, predictive utility) before accepting a knowl-
edge claim qua knowledge.
The history professors also had criteria for establishing knowl-
edge qua knowledge:
History Professor #2: Thats probably the hardest thing of all
to explain. I think I see it in good historical arguments. . . one
that combines. . . a certain kind of specicity to it as well as
elasticity.
21
This professor discussed how historians seek themes that not
only help people understand why a particular historical event oc-
curred (i.e., specicity) but also why other historical events might
have occurred (i.e., elasticity). Each history professor mentioned
that themes must align with the accepted details of historical
events (e.g., the chronology of events) but that the true test of
whether a claim would be considered valuable in history was the
degree to which it was helpful in understanding human activity:
History Professor #2: Well, the two classic [themes] of the dis-
cipline are cause and effect and change over time. And I encour-
age students to always think about whether during whatever
particular historical event or moment in time, they should ask
themselves Why is change occurring? or Why isnt change
occurring?
What struck us about each of our interviews with faculty was
that multiple sources of justication (e.g., coherence with other
claims, predictability of other events) were required before these
individuals were willing to anoint a claim with epistemic status.
This focus on multiple sources of justication aligns with several
recent conceptual pieces on EC (Chinn et al., 2011; Greene et al.,
2008; Murphy et al., 2007) and runs contrary to models of EC that
use only one dimension to characterize individuals beliefs about
justication (e.g., Hofer & Pintrich, 1997).
Given that many EC models have the implicit assumption that it
is important to develop students ability to justify knowledge, we
were particularly struck by this statement:
History Professor #1: In my classes I authorize the textbook as a
source of true, true facts [laughter] right? And, uh, which is,
which is uh you know, provisional and heuristic. . . But, provi-
sionally for courses in the way that students sort of are
approaching learning history, [I] give the text book that episte-
mological status.
In essence, this professor alleviated the need for students in his
class to justify declarative knowledge qua knowledge. However,
his intention when doing that was to sufciently justify the bed-
rock knowledge that would be used to develop students historical
understanding and argumentation skills. Giving the textbook
authority status allowed students to focus upon developing other
EC skills, such as evaluating knowledge claims based upon the
specicity and elasticity of themes.
4.4.2. Middle school student perspectives on authority
Across both the biology and history domains, our middle school
participants frequently mentioned textbooks and teachers as suf-
cient justication for knowledge claims. However, when asked
what they would do if a textbook and a teacher endorsed different,
conicting knowledge claims, many participants listed scientists or
the Internet as the nal arbiter of truth. Views of the Internet as a
reliable source of knowledge were varied, with two history stu-
dents specically mentioning it as a viable source, while another
four were more skeptical, particularly of the veracity of websites
like Wikipedia.
Two of our middle school biology participants preferred doing
experiments to evaluate knowledge claims, rather than relying
on other authority gures. These students responses aligned with
Sandoval and ams (2010) ndings that elementary school chil-
dren privileged rst-hand experience with data over other means
of justication. Another of our student participants distrusted text-
books because they contained spelling errors that led to questions
about whether the authors were sufciently knowledgeable to
present authoritative knowledge claims. Further, some of our stu-
dents were unsure how to reconcile between various sources of
knowledge:
22 J.A. Greene, S.B. Yu / Contemporary Educational Psychology 39 (2014) 1228
History Student #2: Ive always imagined people that write the
textbook you know, as the guy has big glasses on and who like
studied history for like forever and ever. But Ive never really
been positive that the textbooks right [be]cause in a lot of clas-
ses, not just history, the textbook says a lot of different things
than, you know, what the present date person is saying or what
our teacher is saying. But, Im not really sure how, or to trust
them.
Overall, there seemed to be a great deal of variance across mid-
dle school students regarding the relative reliability of various
authorities in biology and history, with particular skepticism
regarding the Internet. Learned others, including teachers and pro-
fessors or scientists, were the most frequently mentioned authori-
tative sources. Participants were much more variable in their faith
in textbooks as an authoritative source, a nding that somewhat
contradicts past research that found that middle school students
viewed textbooks as sacred texts that would not lie to them (Gold-
man, 2004; VanSledright, 2002). These students confusion regard-
ing what sources to privilege may explain why our professors felt
the need to anoint certain sources, like particular textbooks, as
authoritative. Given the professors desire for students to develop
advanced thinking skills, which across domains involved justifying
principled and not declarative knowledge, it seems reasonable to
avoid the cognitive load that comes with having to justify bedrock
knowledge as knowledge.
4.4.3. Middle school student perspectives on means of justication
Our faculty in biology mentioned experimentation, replication,
and coherence as the primary ways of justifying knowledge claims,
along with publication in peer-reviewed journals. We were curious
as to what our middle-school students would say about justica-
tion in biology:
Interviewer: How do you know that what youre learning is
true? How do you know that its accurate?
Biology Student #4: You dont really ever know I guess if its
true, but I guess its been around for long enough that what
were learning has been established by a lot of people that know
what theyre talking about. Theres maybe some specics may
not be right, but. . . its been tested and proven. . . Well, we think
that it happened. It could not really happen, but its been proven
and, or supposedly proven, I mean it could not be really happen-
ing. Its just. . . it makes sense that it happens because it ts with
other things that happen.
Overall, our biology students had what we considered to be
very sophisticated views of justication in biology. Most under-
stood that a single experiment could provide evidence for a claim,
but that replications and theoretical coherence were also needed
before the claim could be tentatively adopted as knowledge. In
our sample, the middle-school students and faculty shared a com-
mon view of how justication occurred in biology.
In history, our middle-school students had very different views
about justication than our faculty, primarily because the majority
of our middle-school students believed that historical knowledge
was solely comprised of facts such as historical events and peo-
ple. Therefore, when asked how they knew something to be
accurate in history, most referred to various authority gures
who could substantiate those facts, as described previously, identi-
fying the locus of justication outside of the self. This sole focus
upon outside authority, or testimony, among the middle-school
students was in stark contrast to the means of justication used
by our faculty, which included evaluations of the quality of histor-
ical interpretations and arguments. Compared to the history pro-
fessors, our middle school history students had very different
interpretations of what we meant when we asked about historical
knowledge, and therefore their views of justication were much
more limited than the facultys views. In biology, the means of jus-
tication within the eld were evident to both middle-school stu-
dents and faculty, whereas in history the means of justication
were much more oblique to the middle-school students, primarily
because they were focused on what the historians would call the
wrong kinds of knowledge.
4.4.4. Implications for the nature of knowing
Each of our participants, including the middle-school students
and the faculty, mentioned means of justication that have been
called authorities in the EC literature (e.g., peer-reviewed jour-
nals, scientists, teachers). Experts in both disciplines, and middle-
school students in biology, discussed the importance of nding
multiple means of justication. Our history middle-school students
had a much more nave faith in authorities. Therefore, measure-
ment items like I am most condent that I know something
when I know what the experts think (Hofer, 2000, p. 251) may
elicit a variety of responses from participants, depending upon
whether they infer that the item is asking whether authorities on
their own can be sufcient justication, or whether authorities
are one piece of evidence among many. Chinn, Buckland, and
Samarapungavan (2011) have pointed out that while psychological
EC research has positioned unquestioned belief in authorities as an
indicator of nave beliefs, in philosophy arguments from authority,
or what they call testimony (p. 22), are common and often
accepted by experts, sometimes with little questioning, depending
upon the source.
Our ndings suggest that EC researchers need to not only mea-
sure learner beliefs about a more diverse set of sources of justica-
tion for knowledge claims than has been conducted in the past
(Greene et al., 2008; Murphy et al., 2007); they also need to nd
ways to determine whether individuals are questioning and using
testimony in ways that are accepted within particular academic
domains (e.g., evaluating the credentials of the authority, deter-
mining the coherence of the claim with other knowledge claims).
It also seems important to identify the kinds of knowledge that
respondents think about when answering such items, as that could
inuence the degree to which testimony would be seen as suf-
cient justication.
Beyond testimony as a source of justication, our ndings indi-
cated that EC researchers should build on the work of Sandoval and
am (2010) to examine how individuals, particularly middle school
students, rank various authority sources (e.g., teachers, textbooks,
scientists, Internet, etc.). It may be that certain rankings are predic-
tive of academic success, whereas others are not. In particular, if a
teacher has one ranking, and the student another, this may lead to
different conclusions about controversial knowledge claims qua
knowledge. Finally, it seems unlikely that survey items that group
all of these potential sources into a single authority will yield
reliable and useful data about the sophistication of individuals EC.
4.5. When development begins
Going into the interview portion of this project, we were not
sure whether the middle school participants would be able to con-
verse with us about EC issues, given their abstract nature and the
fact that many EC researchers have found little to no EC sophistica-
tion in participants younger than college age (e.g., King & Kitchen-
er, 1994). Many of the quotations in previous sections of this paper
have illustrated that some, but not all, of our participants were able
to engage in EC beyond the rudimentary levels. Additional evi-
dence of sophisticated EC included one science student who, when
asked how she evaluates knowledge claims, said that she picked
one that ts best to everything else, that makes the most sense.
Such a focus on what Murphy, Alexander, Greene, and Edwards
 J.A. Greene, S.B. Yu / Contemporary Educational Psychology 39 (2014) 1228
(2007) would call coherence and rationality does not align with the
developmental assumptions of many models of EC.
Another student participant, when asked about reconciling
competing knowledge claims in history, referred to ideas about
historical perspective taking that were similar to those of our fac-
ulty: I kind of just put myself in the shoes of each side and see
which one might make more sense. This kind of historical per-
spective taking would seem unlikely for a person who had sim-
ple views of knowledge and knowing. Additionally, it does not
seem that middle school students are necessarily devoid of the epi-
stemic values held by experts:
History Student #2: . . .when teachers tell me facts, I just like ok,
Ill just study that and you know take a test on it and Ill be done
with it. But when they talk about you know, why they did this
and, it put- it further explains it so, I mean, just general facts
that we need to know dont really, I mean, dont really have
much impact on me as when teachers actually explain you
know, why this person did that, and you know, what it did
and the reason why they did it and stuff like that.
Other researchers have found evidence of sophisticated EC in
students younger than college age (Greene et al., 2010; Kuhn
et al., 2000) and our ndings cohere with those studies.
4.6. Summary of results
Overall, our interviews revealed a number of ways in which cur-
rent models of EC do align with our participants thinking (e.g., ex-
perts beliefs about the certainty of knowledge) as well as a
number of ways in which they do not (e.g., experts distinctions be-
tween different kinds of knowledge; middle school students
understanding of justication in biology). Our ndings, some of
which are anomalous in terms of current EC models, have direct
implications for how EC is measured, and may explain why EC
instruments have displayed poor psychometric qualities. Table 1
illustrates a number of these important ndings.
5. Discussion
By conducting a qualitative investigation of faculty and middle-
school students EC across two different domains, we sought to ex-
plore the ways in which the conceptual literature did and did not
seem to be capturing participants EC, with the hope of discovering
potentially protable new directions for EC model and measure
development. It was our hope that elucidating such gaps might ex-
plain, among other things, why many self-report instruments have
shown such poor measurement validity (e.g., DeBacker et al.,
2008). Critically, we felt that the best way to question the viability
Table 1
Findings relevant to the re-conceptualization of current approaches to EC models and measurement.
Simple knowledge
 Experts believed declarative knowledge matters, but is of low epistemic
value
 Experts and some novices believed connections between declarative
knowledge (e.g. principled, conceptual knowledge) are of high epistemic
value
 Experts believed that declarative knowledge is simple
Justication
 Experts believed defeasibility exists, justication matters, and multiple
sources of justication are best
 Novices displayed variability in which sources they viewed as trustworthy
 Biology novices displayed views of justication resembling those of
experts. History novices displayed views of justication very different
from experts views
23
of EC models was to start from an open-ended, exploratory stance,
as opposed to a theoretically-driven one which typies quantita-
tive research. We believe that this decision led to interview data,
and subsequent inferences about participants EC, that would have
otherwise been difcult, if not impossible, to obtain through meth-
ods derived directly from EC models. Such ndings complement
current quantitative research, and conceptual work, in the eld
(e.g., Chinn et al., 2011; Mason, Ariasi, & Boldrin, 2011).
Thus, our interviews were informed by the various conceptual
models of EC that dominate the literature, but not restricted by
them. Rather, we used our participants responses as a tool to chal-
lenge theory, and broaden our understanding. In the end, we found
that research into beliefs about the nature of knowledge and know-
ing may benet from investigation into the natures of particular
knowledge domains. Through our exploratory multiple case study
design and data analysis, we identied a number of ways that
models of EC might be protably altered to better match novice
and expert beliefs about the natures of knowledge and knowing.
We have also identied ways that the measurement validity of
EC self-report instruments might be improved. However, our nd-
ings also revealed concerns with directions that we had initially
believed to be likely to be fruitful (i.e., ontological categories).
5.1. Nature of knowledge
Both our faculty and our middle-school student respondents
interpreted the term knowledge broadly, including what we
would call declarative, procedural, and principled types of knowl-
edge. After comparing these responses to our review of conceptual
denitions and specic quantitative items from measures of EC, it
seems that the current literature has addressed declarative knowl-
edge beliefs well, but is underspecied in terms of advanced con-
ceptual or principled knowledge beliefs, also called second-order
substantive knowledge in history (VanSledright & Limn, 2006),
and completely bereft of attention to procedural knowledge be-
liefs. Models of EC include the assumption that beliefs about the
nature of knowledge change over time, but that assumption might
not accurately describe how participants, and particularly experts,
view declarative knowledge. While our faculty acknowledged that,
in actuality, all knowledge claims are defeasible, declarative
knowledge claims (e.g., the Declaration of Independence was
signed in 1776) seemed to be, for practical purposes, relatively
simple and certain. Therefore, models that do not account for dif-
ferences in the simple and certain nature of knowledge beliefs
across types of knowledge, and instruments that include items
about knowledge in general, are unlikely to adequately discrim-
inate between novices and experts, leading to poor measurement
validity.
Certain knowledge Epistemic value
 Experts believed knowledge is uncertain and  Experts strongly valued
defeasible principled and conceptual
 History experts believed the importance of knowledge
knowledge usually has an inverse relationship  Some novices strongly val-
to its certainty ued declarative knowledge
 Novice students varied in their beliefs about the
certainty of knowledge
Experts language
 Terminology used to describe low-level knowl-
edge was remarkably similar across disciplines
 Terminology used to describe high-level knowl-
edge was notably different across disciplines
 Descriptions of procedural knowledge differed
across disciplines
24 J.A. Greene, S.B. Yu / Contemporary Educational Psychology 39 (2014) 1228
Further, our faculty emphasized that a key difference between
their understanding of knowledge in their elds and that of their
students was the kinds of knowledge they valued (Chinn et al.,
2011). Particularly in history, our students and faculty seemed to
differ on what they thought we meant when we asked about
knowledge. Much of the knowledge that our middle-school stu-
dents valued in history was what our faculty viewed as the least
interesting or important aspects of historical understanding. As
Chinn, Buckland, and Samarapungavan (2011) have stated, models
of EC might be improved by the addition of epistemic value, and
the absence of items measuring differences in epistemic value
likely diminishes EC instruments utility in differentiating between
experts and novices.
Greene, Azevedo, and Torney-Purta (2008) have argued that EC
researchers interest in peoples beliefs about the nature of knowl-
edge can be better described by incorporating Chis (1992, 1997)
ideas about ontological categories. While it is possible that we
were not asking the right questions, it is nonetheless the case that
our faculty participants did not seem to recognize or resonate with
the knowledge ontology we presented them. If Greene and col-
leagues are correct that Chis ontological categories are how ex-
perts think about knowledge, then these ontologies are tacit, at
least for our participants. It may also be the case that more do-
main-specic language is needed for these ontologies to resonate
with experts (Hammer & Elby, 2002), or that the idea of ontological
categories, as conceptualized by Greene and colleagues, does not
match how novices and experts think about knowledge.
Finally, while both biology and history faculty agreed that there
were low-level and high-level kinds of knowledge in their do-
mains, and that these levels were related, there were clear differ-
ences in the specic ways in which the professors talked about
conceptual and principled knowledge in their domain. Biologists
referred to connections, while historians focused upon interpreta-
tions. We have a difcult time imagining how domain-specic EC
items could be fashioned such that beliefs about the nature of con-
ceptual knowledge could be captured in both domains by simply
substituting the word biology for the word history, as EC
researchers have done in the past (Buehl et al., 2002; Greene
et al., 2010). Our data call into question the very meaning of do-
main-specic EC. It may be that it is not just that individuals be-
liefs about the nature of knowledge can vary across domains, but
that the actual factors themselves (e.g., simple knowledge, certain
knowledge) may differ across domains. These ndings align with
the work of Samarapungavan et al. (2006) who found epistemic be-
liefs and practices that were specic to chemistry, and they argued
that these specic beliefs and practices would not transfer effec-
tively to other hard sciences.
5.2. Nature of knowing
Our interviews revealed a great deal of nuance regarding how
our experts justied knowledge qua knowledge. Faculty in biology
relied upon a coherentist (Murphy et al., 2007) strategy, evaluating
the cumulative weight of evidence across numerous sources (e.g.,
peer-review journal articles, replications, predictive utility). Pro-
fessors in history focused on the quality of historical arguments
in terms of multiple factors including (a) their utility at explaining
specic human and societal behavior, (b) their general applicability
to a wide variety of historical phenomena, and (c) their alignment
with bedrock knowledge about historical people, places, and
events. These ndings align with the work of Greene, Azevedo,
and Torney-Purta (2008) who argued that EC researchers needed
to measure individuals beliefs about multiple sources of justica-
tion, and further substantiate Hammer and Elbys (2002, 2003)
work regarding how epistemic cognition is specic to domain.
Our studys ndings suggest that methods need to be developed
to determine the degree to which individuals utilize one or more
means of justication to establish knowledge. It may be the case
that novices warrant new knowledge through only a single or a
few kinds of justication, such as our history students, whereas ex-
perts routinely examine knowledge using a broader spectrum of
evidence.
As Chinn, Buckland, and Samarapungavan (2011) have sur-
mised, all of our participants, including the faculty, depended upon
various authorities to some degree when evaluating knowledge
claims. This suggests that researchers need to reconsider models
of EC that position justication by authority as a solely nave view
(e.g., Schommer, 1990). When attempting to identify adaptive EC,
it may be more accurate to examine the degree to which individu-
als use of authorities as justication matches that of experts. We
also found that students had varied opinions regarding which
authorities were more reliable than others. These ndings suggest
that it is not sufcient to simply ask individuals to indicate their
belief in a general authority or expert.
Finally, perhaps it was not surprising that we found evidence of
fairly sophisticated EC among our middle school students, given re-
cent research (e.g., Greene et al., 2010; Mason et al., 2010). None-
theless, we felt it important to demonstrate our own form of
replication here by highlighting these ndings, adding further evi-
dence that refutes the idea that EC development does not begin un-
til the college years. Clearly, EC plays a powerful role in learning
throughout adolescence, and likely earlier as well.
5.3. Limitations
Our study, and the associated ndings, were derived from a
small sample of faculty and middle school students from a partic-
ular area of the United States. Our purpose was not to generalize,
but rather to investigate whether the data led to reasonable con-
cerns regarding models of EC and their measurement, and indeed
this was the case. Whether these specic ndings are representa-
tive of larger populations remains open to investigation, but clearly
we have proof-of-concept that our participants responses do not
t well into most current models of EC. Another limitation was our
reliance on interviews as the sole measure of participants EC.
Numerous researchers (e.g., Chinn & Brewer, 1993) have shown
that while scientists may espouse certain beliefs (e.g., that anoma-
lous data should lead to a reconsideration of underlying theory),
they often do not act in accordance with these beliefs (e.g., ignoring
anomalous data). These ndings call into question whether inter-
views are sufcient means of truly understanding experts do-
main-specic beliefs and behaviors. In addition, our sample was
small and convenient, and we were not able to access key academic
performance or school demographic data. This limited our ability
to select a sample based upon these factors. Future research should
incorporate more diverse and systematically gathered samples.
While we attempted to engage in disciplined subjectivity through
critical reection, it may be the case that our inferences were un-
duly inuenced by our particular experiences with EC. Future re-
search is needed to determine whether the proposed
modications resulting from our study are accurate depictions of
novice and expert EC, and whether they prove useful in relating
EC to academic outcomes.
For this study, we adopted a decidedly qualitative approach and
therefore did not attempt to leverage the aspects of controlled de-
sign that are typical when supporting claims made via a quantita-
tive paradigm. The strength of our qualitative approach was to
facilitate an illumination of EC phenomena that was less con-
stricted by the assumptions and models of past work. Our goal
was not to comprehensively compare learners along all of the EC
aspects suggested in the protocol for every participant. Rather,
we hoped to nd clear evidence of EC phenomena, inasmuch as
 J.A. Greene, S.B. Yu / Contemporary Educational Psychology 39 (2014) 1228
it was possible for the scale of our study, by operating outside of
the a priori EC assumptions inherent and necessary in quantitative
research tools. The semi-structured protocol and interview design
was meant to simulate ideas and provide opportunities through
which participants could articulate their thoughts as freely as pos-
sible. Necessary to our interests was allowing and even encourag-
ing our participants to pursue their own lines of thought and for
the interviewer to follow participant lead in terms of specic top-
ical interests. Such an approach is in line with qualitative research
ideals that value maximization of participant voice and its ability
to elucidate the complexity of worldly phenomena (Patton,
2002). Unfortunately, this also means that participants interview
experiences necessarily varied in some ways, precluding exacting
comparisons across participants. Therefore, ndings from this
study should be considered empirically supported suggestions
for the re-consideration of theory and measurement rather than
an attempt to prescribe a specic set of recommendations
regarding individual differences in EC across populations. Such
work, likely incorporating rigorous quantitative methods, is
certainly needed.
Finally, this study did not investigate the larger contextual
inuence of instructional practice upon EC development. It is likely
that differing instructional practices and curricular goals in biology
and history strongly contribute to particularities in EC develop-
ment. Our interviews revealed multiple instances of expert-like
EC from some of our biology novices along the justication dimen-
sion, but not from the history novices. We also saw multiple in-
stances of expert-like EC from some of our history novices along
the simple knowledge dimension, but not so much from the biol-
ogy novices. If EC models begin to account for such differences in
their developmental trajectories, research into the degree to which
they are determined by characteristics of the domain or by instruc-
tional practice would be an important line of inquiry.
5.4. Implications for measuring epistemic cognition
One implication that we hope is clear from this study is that EC
research would benet from additional multiple and mixed meth-
ods investigations of the phenomenon (Lewis & Grimes, 1999). In
terms of our study, we did not feel that quantitative analyses of
our relatively small samples, particularly when subdivided into
groups, would yield interpretable data. However, the growing use
of think-aloud protocol data analysis techniques (e.g., Mason
et al., 2011) presents an example of how quantitative inferences
can be made from qualitative data. Likewise, we believe that the
unique ability to question theory with qualitative data nicely com-
plements the model testing and generalization that can result from
well-designed quantitative research. In the future, we plan to iter-
ate between quantitative and qualitative techniques to advance to-
ward a deeper and more comprehensive conceptualization of what
EC is, and how it affects learning and performance among novices
and experts.
In our review of our ndings we outlined a number of ways
that EC models could be expanded or altered. Our hope is that
such changes will lead to measures of EC with strong evidence
of measurement validity. However, if self-report instruments
are to be useful measures of EC, they need both strong theory
and item design. Writing items that tap beliefs about the value
of sophisticated ideas in biology (e.g., theories) and history
(e.g., themes) may prove to be a challenge, particularly if the
items need to be parallel, as asserted by other researchers
(e.g., Buehl et al., 2002; Greene et al., 2010; Hofer, 2000). It
may be the case that the items needed to truly capture expertise
in one domain are necessarily and fundamentally different than
those needed to capture expertise in another (Samarapungavan
et al., 2006). This would expand the idea of domain-specicity
25
to not only include intraindividual variation in EC across do-
mains, but also the possibility that certain relevant beliefs about
the nature of knowledge and knowing themselves are domain-
specic (Hammer & Elby, 2002, 2003).
Likewise, many EC instruments measure expertise in a do-
main based upon the degree to which individuals disagree with
nave statements about the nature of knowledge and knowing.
Unfortunately, merely disagreeing with a nave statement is not
a reliable indicator of expertise, particularly when considering
that many EC researchers posit in their models that beliefs about
knowledge and knowing exist on a continuum from nave to
sophisticated, and that these beliefs are not dichotomous choices
between navet and sophistication (Greene et al., 2008; Hofer &
Pintrich, 1997; Schommer, 1990). Non-experts may disagree
with claims such as To know [math/history] well, you need to
memorize what you are taught (Greene et al., 2010, p. 251),
but that does not mean that they hold beliefs about justication
that are similar to those of experts. It seems to us that more
attention must be paid to writing items that capture sophisti-
cated beliefs about knowledge and knowing. Given our concerns
about how faculty might be interpreting the items on quantita-
tive measures of EC, it seems that cognitive interviewing studies
(Karabenick et al., 2007) with this population are warranted.
There were also important nuances in how our middle
school students thought about authorities in biology and
history. While there was variance, in general our participants
seemed to privilege certain authorities over others. Therefore,
a potentially useful way to measure EC would be to determine
whether students have ranked authorities in ways similar to
experts, or in ways that reliably lead them to accepted
knowledge claims. Such rankings might predict how students
engage in open-ended searches of multiple information sources
(e.g., Internet) when attempting to answer ill-structured problems
(Brten, Britt, Stromso, & Rouet, 2011; Hofer, 2004; Mason
et al., 2010).
Finally, we would be remiss if we failed to mention that our
ndings may add support to the argument that EC cannot be mea-
sured using survey-type items at all (Hofer, 2006; Muis et al.,
2006). It may be that other types of investigations, such as think-
aloud protocols (Mason et al., 2010) are required to surface and
understand EC. It may also be the case that what learners do is
far more important than what they report or say regarding their
EC (Greene et al., 2010). Therefore, analyses of learner actions
and interactions may be the necessary next frontier in EC research
(e.g., Greene et al., 2010).
6. Conclusion
Until researchers are able to accurately capture intra- and inter-
individual EC variation, claims of relations between EC and aca-
demic outcomes will warrant at best tentative status as
knowledge. The eld simply must do a better job of measuring
EC. Ultimately, the poor measurement validity evidence for self-re-
port measures of EC may be due to any of the three reasons we
listed previously, or another reason altogether. Our study explored
one particular possibility, that the models of EC themselves were in
need of modication due to a lack of alignment with novices and
experts stated EC and a lack of attention to the inherent differ-
ences between domains of knowledge. We believe our ndings
suggest numerous potentially benecial avenues for exploration
and potential modication of EC models. In particular, we believe
much more nuance is needed regarding how models of EC address
the various kinds of knowledge, the degree of similarity and differ-
ence in beliefs across and within domains, and the ways in which
individuals utilize multiple means of justication to evaluate
knowledge claims.
26 J.A. Greene, S.B. Yu / Contemporary Educational Psychology 39 (2014) 1228
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Kristin Dellinger and Stacy
Ruse for their assistance in collecting and transcribing data.
This research was supported by a grant from the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Education (Guy B.
Phillips Research Award for Grant Initiation) awarded to the
rst author.
Appendix A.
Middle school student semi-structured interview protocol:
(1) Can you tell me how you feel about [biology/history] in
general?
(2) Can you tell me how you feel about [biology/history] class?
(3) What do you think your teachers want you to learn in [biol-
ogy/history] class?
(4) What are the types of things you need to know in [biology/
history] to do well?
(5) How would you classify different types of knowledge in
[biology/history], how would you label them?
(5a) Are there different kinds of classications that are
important or useful?
(6) Id like to know more about how you think about knowledge
in [biology/history]. For example, one kind (or category) of
knowledge in [biology/history] is dates when important
events happened. Another kind (category) of knowledge
is [for history: the people involved in those events for biol-
ogy: substances, the physical things you might study].
What other kinds (or categories) of knowledge can you
think of?
(7) Now that you have listed many different kinds of knowledge,
what are the important ways those kinds of knowledge dif-
fer? What makes these categories distinct from one
another?
(8) Would you say that some kinds of knowledge are simpler or
more complex than others, or are they all about the same?
(9) Would you say that some kinds of knowledge are more or
less certain than others, or are they all about the same in
terms of certainty?
(10) How likely do you think it is that each of these kinds of
knowledge might change over time as humans learn more
about them?
(11) In [biology/history] how do we know if something is true or
is a fact?
(12) In terms of debatable things in science like evolution or glo-
bal warming, how do you decide what to believe and what
not?
(13) How do you know that these kinds of knowledge are really
knowledge and not something different like a belief or
guess?
(14) When do you accept something as knowledge? (How many
sources do you use in order to justify something as
knowledge?)
(15) Are there certain people or other sources of knowledge that
you listen to more than another? (Internet, teacher, parents,
books, etc.)
(16) If a scientist, a textbook, a teacher, and an internet site all
say something different about a topic, how do you decide
what is true?
(17) How do you know something versus being unsure of
something?
(18) Is there anything else that you think is important about what
weve been discussing that you havent mentioned yet?
Biology-specic question:
In terms of debatable things in science like evolution or global
warming, how do you decide what to believe and what not?
History-specic question:
Think about your history book now and one written 20 years
from now, will they say the same things in terms of the American
Revolution or World War I?
Appendix B.
Faculty member semi-structured interview protocol
(1) To be knowledgeable in [biology/history], what are the
kinds of things students need to know?
(2) In [biology/history] there is a compendium of knowledge.
Within that compendium there are different types of knowl-
edge. What are those types?
(3) How would you classify different types of knowledge in
[biology/history], how would you label them?
(4) Are there different kinds of classications that are important
or useful?
(5) Id like to know more about how you think about knowledge
in [biology/history]. For example, one kind (or category) of
knowledge in [biology/history] is dates when important
events happened. Another kind (category) of knowledge
is [for history: the people involved in those events for biol-
ogy: substances, the physical things you might study].
What other kinds (or categories) of knowledge can you
think of?
(6) Now that you have listed many different kinds of knowl-
edge, what are the important ways those kinds of knowledge
differ? What makes these categories distinct from one
another?
(7) How does knowledge of [biology/history] help us as a
society?
(8) Would you say that some kinds of knowledge are simpler or
more complex than others, or are they all about the same?
(9) Would you say that some kinds of knowledge are more or
less certain than others, or are they all about the same in
terms of certainty?
(10) How likely do you think it is that each of these kinds of
knowledge might change over time as humans learn more
about them?
(11) In [biology/history] how do we know if something is true or
is a fact?
(12) How do you know that these kinds of knowledge are really
knowledge and not something different like a belief or
guess?
(13) How can you justify a knowledge claim as knowledge?
(14) In thinking about [biology/history] textbooks now versus
those that will be used 20 years from now, what differences,
if any, will there be?
(15) Is there anything else that you think is important about what
weve been discussing that you havent mentioned yet?
(16) In terms of helping students be successful in history, are
there other things that you think are important, that stu-
dents should know?
Biology-specic questions:
What are the characteristics of a law or theory that differentiate
it from a fact?
It has been proposed that there are three broad categories in
biology: substances, processes, and mental states, and that one
reason why students confuse an idea like heat is because they
mis-categorize. By doing so they apply characteristics of sub-
 J.A. Greene, S.B. Yu / Contemporary Educational Psychology 39 (2014) 1228 27

stances to heat which is actually a process. Do you think that instruction: Essays in honor of Robert Glaser (pp. 125186). Hillsdale, NJ:
Erlbaum.
teaching students about science ideas in terms of these categories
Goldman, S. R. (2004). Cognitive aspects of constructing meaning through and
and their characteristics might be helpful? across multiple texts. In N. Shuart-Ferris & D. M. Bloome (Eds.), Uses of
intertextuality in classroom and educational research (pp. 313347). Greenwich,
History-specic questions: CT: Information Age.
Greene, J. A. (2009). Collegiate faculty expectations regarding students epistemic
How important is it to understand how people were thinking in and ontological cognition and the likelihood of academic success. Contemporary
the past? Educational Psychology, 34, 230239. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2009.
How are the whys of history similar or not similar to the 05.003.
Greene, J. A., Azevedo, R., & Torney-Purta, J. (2008). Modeling epistemic and
facts of history? ontological cognition: Philosophical perspectives and methodological
directions. Educational Psychologist, 43(3), 142160.
References Greene, J. A., Muis, K. R., & Pieschl, S. (2010). The role of epistemic beliefs
in students self-regulated learning with computer-based learning environ-
ments: Conceptual and methodological issues. Educational Psychologist, 45(4),
Alexander, P. A. (2003). The development of expertise: The journey from
245257.
acclimation to prociency. Educational Researcher, 32(8), 1014.
Greene, J. A., Torney-Purta, J., & Azevedo, R. (2010). Empirical evidence regarding
Baxter Magolda, M. B. (1992). Knowing and reasoning in college: Gender-related
relations among a model of epistemic and ontological cognition, academic
patterns in students intellectual development. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
performance, and educational level. Journal of Educational Psychology, 102(1),
Belenky, M. F., Clinchy, B. M., Goldberger, N. R., & Tarule, J. M. (1986). Womens ways
234255.
of knowing. New York: Basic Books.
Hammer, D., & Elby, A. (2003). Tapping epistemological resources for learning
Biglan, A. (1973). The characteristics of subject matter in different academic areas.
physics. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 12(1), 5390.
Journal of Applied Psychology, 57(3), 195203.
Hammer, D., & Elby, A. (2002). On the form of a personal epistemology. In B. K. Hofer
Boyes, M., & Chandler, M. J. (1992). Cognitive development, epistemic doubt, and
& P. R. Pintrich (Eds.), Personal epistemology: The psychology of beliefs about
identity formation in adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 21,
knowledge and knowing (pp. 169190). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
277304.
Hartmann, U., & Hasselhorn, M. (2008). Historical perspective taking: A
Brten, I., Britt, M. A., Stromso, H. I., & Rouet, J.-F. (2011). The role of epistemic
standardized measure for an aspect of students historical thinking. Learning
beliefs in the comprehension of multiple expository texts: Toward an integrated
and Individual Differences, 18, 264270.
model. Educational Psychologist, 46(1), 4870.
Hofer, B. K. (2000). Dimensionality and disciplinary differences in personal
Brten, I., & Stromso, H. I. (2005). The relationship between epistemological beliefs,
epistemology. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25, 378405.
implicit theories of intelligence, and self-regulated learning among Norwegian
Hofer, B. K. (2004). Epistemological understanding as a metacognitive process:
postsecondary students. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 75, 539565.
Thinking aloud during online searching. Educational Psychologist, 39, 4355.
Buehl, M. M., & Alexander, P. A. (2005). Motivation and performance differences in
Hofer, B. K. (2006). Beliefs about knowledge and knowing: Integrating domain
students domain-specic epistemological belief proles. American Education
specicity and domain generality: A response to Muis, Bendixen, and Haerle
Research Journal, 42, 697726.
(2006). Educational Psychology Review, 18(1), 6776.
Buehl, M. M., Alexander, P. A., & Murphy, P. K. (2002). Beliefs about schooled
Hofer, B. K., & Bendixen, L. D. (2012). Personal epistemology: Theory,
knowledge: Domain specic or domain general? Contemporary Educational
research, and future directions. In K. R. Harris, S. Graham, & T. Urdan
Psychology, 27, 415449.
(Eds.), Educational psychology handbook. Theories, constructs, and critical
Buehl, M. M. (2008). Assessing the multidimensionality of students epistemic
issues (1, pp. 225254). Washington DC: American Psychological
beliefs across diverse cultures. In M. S. Khine (Ed.), Knowing, knowledge and
Association.
beliefs: Epistemological studies across diverse cultures (pp. 65112). New York:
Hofer, B. K., & Pintrich, P. R. (1997). The development of epistemological theories:
Springer.
Beliefs about knowledge and knowing and their relation to learning. Review of
Burr, J. E., & Hofer, B. K. (2002). Personal epistemology and theory of mind:
Educational Research, 67, 88140.
Deciphering young childrens beliefs about knowledge and knowing. New Ideas
Hofer, T., & Pintrich, P. R. (2002). Personal epistemology: The psychology of beliefs
in Psychology, 20, 199224.
about knowledge and knowing. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum
Chandler, M. G., Boyes, M., & Ball, L. (1990). Relativism and stations of epistemic
Associates.
doubt. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 50, 370395.
Hofer, B. K., & Sinatra, G. M. (2010). Epistemology, metacognition, and self-
Chandler, M. J., Hallett, D., & Sokol, B. W. (2002). Competing claims about competing
regulation: musings on an emerging eld. Metacognition & Learning, 5, 113120.
knowledge claims. In B. K. Hofer & P. R. Pintrich (Eds.), Personal epistemology:
Karabenick, S. A., Woolley, M. E., Friedel, J. M., Ammon, B. V., Blazevski, J., Rhee
The psychology of beliefs about knowledge and knowing (pp. 145168). Mahwah,
Bonney, C., et al. (2007). Cognitive processing of self-report items in educational
New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
research: Do they think what we mean? Educational Psychologist, 42(3),
Chi, M. T. H. (1992). Conceptual change within and across ontological categories:
139151.
Examples from learning and discovery in science. In R. Giere (Ed.), Cognitive
King, P. M., & Kitchener, K. S. (1994). Developing reective judgment: Understanding
models of science: Minnesota studies in the philosophy of science (pp. 129160).
and promoting intellectual growth and critical thinking in adolescents and adults.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Chi, M. T. H. (1997). Creativity: Shifting across ontological categories exibly. In T. B.
Kitchener, R. (2002). Folk epistemology: An introduction. New Ideas in Psychology,
Ward, S. M. Smith, & J. Vaid (Eds.), Creative thought: An investigation of
20, 89105.
conceptual structures and processes (pp. 209234). Washington, DC: American
Kuhn, D., Cheney, R., & Weinstock, M. (2000). The development of epistemological
Psychological Association.
understanding. Cognitive Development, 15, 309328.
Chinn, C. A., & Brewer, W. F. (1993). The role of anomalous data in knowledge
Lampert, M. (1986). Knowing, doing, and teaching multiplication. Cognition and
acquisition: A theoretical framework and implications for science instruction.
Instruction, 3, 305342.
Review of Educational Research, 63, 149.
Leinhardt, G., Beck, I., & Stainton, C. (1994). Teaching and learning in history.
Chinn, C. A., Buckland, L. A., & Samarapungavan, A. (2011). Expanding the
Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
dimensions of epistemic cognition: Arguments from philosophy and
Lewis, M. W., & Grimes, A. J. (1999). Metatriangulation: Building theory from
psychology. Educational Psychologist, 46(3), 141167.
multiple paradigms. Academy of Management Review, 24(4), 672690.
Clarebout, G., Elen, J., Luyten, L., & Bamps, H. (2001). Assessing epistemological
Madill, A., & Gough, B. (2008). Qualitative research and its place in psychological
beliefs: Schommers questionnaire revisited. Educational Research and
science. Psychological Methods, 13(3), 254271.
Evaluation, 7, 5377.
Mason, L., Ariasi, N., & Boldrin, A. (2011). Epistemic beliefs in action:
Conley, A. M., Pintrich, P. R., Vekiri, I., & Harrison, D. (2004). Changes in
Spontaneous reections about knowledge and knowing during online
epistemological beliefs in elementary science students. Contemporary
information searching and their inuence on learning. Learning and
Educational Psychology, 29, 186204.
Instruction, 21(1), 137151.
Creswell, J. W. (2008). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating
Mason, L., Boldrin, A., & Ariasi, N. (2010). Searching the web to learn about a
quantitative and qualitative research (3rd Ed.). Columbus, OH: Merrill Prentice
controversial topic: Are students epistemically active? Instructional Science, 38,
Hall.
607633.
DeBacker, T. K., Crowson, H. M., Beesley, A. D., Thoma, S. J., & Hestevold, N. L. (2008).
Mason, L., & Scirica, F. (2006). Prediction of students argumentation skills about
The challenge of measuring epistemic beliefs: An analysis of three self-report
controversial topics by epistemological understanding. Learning and Instruction,
instruments. The Journal of Experimental Education, 76(3), 281312.
16, 492509.
Feucht, F. C., & Bendixen, L. D. (2010). Exploring similarities and differences in
Mertens, D. M. (2010). Research and evaluation in education and psychology:
personal epistemologies of U.S. and German elementary school teachers.
Integrating diversity with quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods.
Cognition and Instruction, 28(1), 3969.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Flavell, J. H. (2004). Theory-of-mind development: Retrospect and prospect. Merill-
Muis, K. R. (2007). The role of epistemic beliefs in self-regulated learning.
Palmer Quarterly, 50, 274290.
Educational Psychologist, 42(3), 173190.
Frederiksen, N. (1984). Implications of cognitive theory for instruction in problem
Muis, K. R. (2008). Epistemic proles and self-regulated learning: Examining
solving. Review of Educational Research, 54, 407636.
relations in the context of mathematics problem solving. Contemporary
Gelman, R., & Greeno, J. G. (1989). On the nature of competence: Principles for
Educational Psychology, 33, 177208.
understanding in a domain. In L. B. Resnick (Ed.), Knowing, learning, and
28 J.A. Greene, S.B. Yu / Contemporary Educational Psychology 39 (2014) 1228
Muis, K. R., Bendixen, L. D., & Haerle, F. C. (2006). Domain-generality and domain-
specicity in personal epistemology research: Philosophical and empirical
reections in the development of a theoretical framework. Educational
Psychology Review, 18, 354.
Murphy, P. K. (2005, November). Toward a model of topic knowledge and belief
change. Paper presented at the annual conference of the Southwest Consortium for
Innovative Psychology, Las Vegas, Nevada.
Murphy, P. K., Alexander, P. A., Greene, J. A., & Edwards, M. N. (2007).
Epistemological threads in the fabric of conceptual change. In S. Vosniadou
(Ed.), Reframing the conceptual change approach in learning and instruction
(pp. 105122). New York: Elsevier Press.
Murphy, P. K., & Alexander, P. A. (2004, May). Epistemological threads in the fabric
of conceptual change. Invited paper presented at the 4th European Symposium on
Conceptual Change, Delphi, Greece.
Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative evaluation and research methods (3rd ed.). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Perry, W. G., Jr. (1968/1999). Forms of ethical and intellectual development in the
college years: A scheme. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Rosenberg, S., Hammer, D., & Phelan, J. (2006). Multiple epistemological coherences
in an eighth-grade discussion of the rock cycle. The Journal of the Learning
Sciences, 15(2), 261292.
Samarapungavan, A., Westby, E. L., & Bodner, G. M. (2006). Contextual epistemic
development in science: A comparison of chemistry students and research
chemists. Science Education, 90, 468495.
Sandoval, W. A. (2005). Understanding students practical epistemologies and their
inuence on learning through inquiry. Science Education, 89(4), 634656.
Sandoval, W. A. (2009). In defense of clarity in the study of personal epistemology.
The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 18(1), 150161.
Sandoval, W. A., & am, A. (2010). Elementary childrens judgments of the epistemic
status of sources of justication. Science Education, 95(3), 383408.
Schommer, M. (1990). Effects of beliefs about the nature of knowledge on
comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 398504.
Schommer, M., Crouse, A., & Rhodes, N. (1992). Epistemological beliefs and
mathematical text comprehension: Believing it is simple does not make it so.
Journal of Educational Psychology, 84, 435443.
Schommer, M., & Walker, K. (1995). Are epistemological beliefs similar across
domains? Journal of Educational Psychology, 87, 424432.
Schraw, G. (2006). Knowledge: Structures and processes. In P. Alexander & P. Winne
(Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology (2nd ed., pp. 245264). San Diego:
Academic.
Schraw, G. J., & Olafson, L. J. (2008). Assessing teachers epistemological and
ontological worldviews. In M. S. Khine (Ed.), Knowing, knowledge and beliefs:
Epistemological studies across diverse cultures (pp. 2544). New York: Springer.
Tu, Y., Shih, M., & Tsai, C. (2008). Eighth graders web searching strategies and
outcomes: The role of task types, web experiences, and epistemological beliefs.
Computers & Education, 51, 11421153.
VanSledright, B. (2002). Confronting historys interpretive paradox while teaching
fth graders to investigate the past. American Educational Research Journal, 39,
10891115.
VanSledright, B. A., & Limn, M. (2006). Learning and teaching social studies: A
review of cognitive research in history and geography. In P. A. Alexander & P. H.
Winne (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology (2nd ed., pp. 545570).
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Wood, P., & Kardash, C. (2002). Critical elements in the design and analysis of
studies of epistemology. In B. K. Hofer & P. R. Pintrich (Eds.), Personal
epistemology: The psychology of beliefs about knowledge and knowing
(pp. 231260). Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Yin, R. K. (2006). Case study methods. In J. L. Green, G. Camili, & P. B. Elmore (Eds.),
Handbook of complementary methods in education research (pp. 111122).
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.