2016 Annual Conference

A change in one’s epistemology, or the habitual ways that the person evaluates knowledge claims in constructing their own knowledge, is an important yet often unrecognized outcome of adult learning. This session will present and explore different forms of epistemological change and their significance for learners, educators, and researchers.

The target audience for this session includes scholars interested in new ways of defining and analyzing learning outcomes related to epistemological change, as well as educators and instructional designers interested in converting the tacit expectations of their discipline into explicit learning objectives.

A change in one’s epistemology, or the habitual ways that a person evaluates knowledge claims in constructing their own knowledge, is an important yet often unrecognized outcome of adult learning. Most often, educational scholars writing about epistemology have focused solely on metacognition. Recently, however, attention has been directed at epistemological change as a fundamental type of transformative learning outcomes (Author, 2016). In this newer vein, epistemology is regarded as an integral component of the meaning making process that occurs on a continual basis. From this perspective, there is a need to articulate specific forms that epistemology can take and thus different ways that epistemology can change.
Of particular importance for educators is the need to be explicit about the form of epistemology that is expected of their learners. Every discipline has a specific epistemology that is expected - yet often so deeply engrained as to be tacit in their educational programs. Similarly, there is a benefit for researchers seeking to convey the constructed reality of participants to be able to accurately convey the epistemology employed in that construction. The purpose of this session is to provide conceptual tools to aid these educators and researchers.