The Use of Epistemic Tools to Facilitate Epistemic Cognition & Metacognition in Developing Scientific Explanation

Abstract

Current research in science education and the cognitive sciences has highlighted the importance of epistemic tools in scaffolding learners to think in ways consistent with scientific practices. However, recent studies on epistemic tool have mainly focused on epistemic cognition, but not epistemic metacognition. Epistemic metacognition, which operates at a meta-level targeted at our own thought processes concerning the source, nature, and justification of knowledge, is a crucial component that promotes and regulates epistemic development. The aim of this paper is to illuminate how an epistemic tool mediates and supports epistemic cognition and epistemic metacognition, and the difference between them. Drawing data from a design research study that introduced a specific epistemic tool called PRO (premise-reasoning-outcome) to describe the structure of a scientific explanation, this paper illustrates how PRO was used to facilitate the development of both epistemic cognition and epistemic metacognition. Specifically, epistemic metacognition was developed by using PRO with multiple metacognitive instructional approaches to: (a) highlight the epistemic connections between the various components of an explanation, (b) prompt questions that regulate one’s own thought processes, and (c) organize navigational markers that regulate key ideas linking the causality of an explanation. The findings from this study provide insights and evidence for a crucial theoretical link that is currently missing in our understanding of epistemic tools, epistemic cognition, and epistemic metacognition.

Acknowledgement

I wish to express my gratitude to the teachers, students, and colleagues who collaborated in this research project as well as Natasha Anne Rappa for her assistance in part of the analysis reported in this study. I also like to thank the anonymous reviewers in this journal whose critical and helpful comments have greatly improved this paper.

Notes

1 In the context of the explanation, a premise does not need to be “explained.” However, this does not mean that a premise cannot be questioned. In the history of science, the strength of a premise is based on empirical evidence, but this will involve a different scientific practice which is argumentation.

2 In Singapore educational system, all students in public schools are streamed into different schools and classes according to their academic abilities, which are measured by their results in national standardized examinations. Based on the results of the streaming, the students in John’s class would be considered as having average ability in comparison to the entire student population of the same year in Singapore.

Additional information

Funding

This paper refers to data from the research project “Developing disciplinary literacy pedagogy in the sciences” [OER 48/12 TKS] funded by the Education Research Funding Program, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.