Making Space to Sensemake: Epistemic Distancing in Small Group Physics Discussions

Abstract

Students in inquiry science classrooms face an essential tension between sharing new ideas and critically evaluating those ideas. This tension poses affective risks that can discourage further discussion, such as the embarrassment of having an idea rejected. In this article, we analyze the discourse of three groups of undergraduate physics students in their first discussions of the semester, detailing how they navigate these tensions to create a safe space to collaboratively sensemake. We identify a discursive resource—epistemic distancing—that can protect students’ affect while they share and critique ideas. We find the groups differ in how soon, how often, and how deeply they sensemake together. These differences can be explained, in part, by how they epistemically distance themselves from their claims. Implications for research include the importance of considering the coupled dynamics of students’ epistemology and affect. Implications for instruction include novel ways of encouraging classroom discussion.

Notes

1 All names are psuedonyms. See Appendix A for transcript conventions.

2 This was the case for Dan Shechtman, recipient of the 2011 Nobel Prize in chemistry for the discovery of quasicrystals. When his idea was originally rejected, Shechtman’s career was all but ruined. He was expelled by his research group and ridiculed by leading chemists such as Linus Pauling, who quipped: “There is no such thing as quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists." (Shechtman, 2013, p. 5).

3 The phrase I think is not necessarily a hedge; it can serve many different purposes depending on context and emphasis (Kärkkäinen, 2003). “I think” can convey uncertainty; “I think” can convey certainty and discourage disagreement.

4 A related term, epistemic distance has been in use by both linguists (e.g., Mortelmans, 2000) and philosophical theologians (e.g., Hick, 1973) to assess how privileged the positions are from which we make truth claims. For example, I have a more privileged position than you (i.e., less epistemic distance) for assessing whether or not I believe in God, but not for assessing whether God exists at all. Linguists debate whether the term should be reserved for indicating a speaker’s level of certainty or the directness of evidence from which they draw their conclusion. We use the term to refer to both, although in practice speakers more often index their level of certainty than their sources of evidence. We also prefer the gerund distancing because it highlights the active nature of the process by which speakers manage their epistemic commitments.

5 In fact, the Blue group continue to sensemaking about their motion graphs, so much so that later in the tutorial, they sensemake about bumps in their graphs even when the tutorial worksheet tells them to just “smooth out the bumps.”

6 The Tutorials in Physics Sensemaking are open source, so instructors may adjust them to meet their particular needs, say, by adding epistemic distancing into the worksheet questions.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the National Science Foundation (Grant #0440113). We thank David Hammer for guidance in this work; Ayush Gupta for assistance with analysis and insightful discussions; and Megan Luce, Eric Kuo, and Dan Schwartz for helpful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts.