• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.229-254
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• 2021

Students' participation in epistemic practices, which are related to knowledge construction on the part of students, is becoming a crucial part of learning (Goizueta, 2019). Research on epistemic practices in science education draws attention to teachers' support of students to engage in epistemic practices in mathematics instruction. The research highlights a need for incorporating epistemic goals, along with conceptual and social goals, into instruction to promote students' epistemic practices. In this paper, I investigate how teachers interact with students to integrate epistemic goals. I examined 24 interaction excerpts that I identified from six interview transcripts of two beginning teachers' mathematics instruction. Each excerpt was related to the teachers' talk about their specific interaction(s) in a small group. I explored how each teacher's discursive moves and goals were conceptual, social, and epistemic-related as they intervened in small groups. I found that both teachers used conceptual, social, and epistemic discursive move but their discursive moves were related only to social and social goals. This paper suggests supporting teachers to develop epistemic goals in mathematics instruction, particularly in relation to small groups.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.337-348
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to examine epistemic thinking in middle school students in an argument-based inquiry science class. Participants of the study were 93 9th grade students from four classes of a middle school in a metropolitan city. Observations were made over one semester during which argument-based inquiry lessons on five subjects were conducted. Data was collected from argument-based inquiry activity worksheets and student questionnaires. After analysis of epistemic thinking in the written reflections, students were found to have the highest frequency of epistemic metacognitive skills, followed by epistemic cognition, epistemic metacognitive experience, and epistemic metacognitive knowledge. While investigating the effects of an argument-based inquiry science class on student epistemic thinking and after analysis of the reflections written for the first ABI activity and the fifth ABI activity, we found that all of the sub-elements of epistemic thinking have increased. The rate of growth for epistemic cognition is greatest, followed by epistemic metacognitive knowledge and epistemic metacognitive skills. Assessed for epistemic thinking, the level of epistemic thinking improved over the course of the argument-based inquiry science class. The results of the survey show that students actively participating and being recognized for their active participation in the argument-based inquiry science class are helpful in understanding scientific knowledge. Therefore, an argument-based inquiry science class is a teaching and learning program that allows students to understand and experience the epistemic nature of scientific knowledge and its construction through collaboration and agreement.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.173-187
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to clarify the specific terms of epistemic and epistemological by reviewing the literature on epistemological understanding of science learning, examine the necessity of epistemic discourse analysis based on the view of social epistemology, and provide an exemplar of practical epistemology analysis for elementary children's science learning. The review was conducted in terms of meaning and terminology about epistemic or epistemological approach to science learning, epistemology of/for science, and methodologies for epistemic discourse analysis. As an alternative way of epistemic discourse analysis in science classroom I employed practical epistemology analysis (by Wickman), evidence-explanation continuum (by Duschl), and DREEC diagram (by Maeng et al.). The methods were administered to an elementary science class for the third grade where children observed sedimentary rocks. Through the outcomes of analysis I sought to understand the processes how children collected data by observation, identified evidence, and constructed explanations about rocks. During the process of practical epistemology analysis the cases of four categories, such as encounter, stand-fast, gap, and relation, were identified. The sequence of encounter, stand fast, gap, and relation showed how children observed sedimentary rocks and how they came to learn the difference among the rocks. The epistemic features of children's observation discourse, although different from scientists' discourses during their own practices, showed data-only conversation, evidence-driven conversation, or explanation inducing conversation. Thus I argue even elementary children are able to construct their own knowledge and their epistemic practices are productive.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.269-284
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to investigate the epistemic process in elementary science classrooms by analyzing classroom discourse as a epistemic practice. Data came from four elementary teachers in the form of video-recordings. A total of 12 elementary science lessons were examined to reveal the discursive modes and sequences in which the teacher and students participated when they constructed and developed scientific knowledge during the lessons. Three representative discursive patterns were found in the elementary science lessons explored: (i) 'Retrieving-Retrieving-${\cdots}$' by which well-established scientific knowledge was retrieved repeatedly, (ii) 'Exploring-Building on the Shared' which allowed introducing new scientific knowledge based on the scientific phenomena explored by the teacher and students together through practical work, and (iii) 'Retrieving-Elaborating/Reformulating/Narrating' or 'Building on the Shared-Elaborating/Reformulating/Narrating' which expanded and strengthened scientific knowledge already learned. These discursive patterns were suggested as discursive-epistemic mechanisms employed frequently in the epistemic process in elementary science lessons and as a basis for defining epistemic cultures of science classrooms.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.496-509
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• 2019

This study explores the types of epistemic emotions that elementary-school students experience in science classes and the cognitive appraisal factors that affect these emotions. Thirty-two fourth-grade students of an elementary school in Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, participated in 20 science periods and wrote emotional diaries at the end of each class. In addition, the researcher conducted follow-up interviews to investigate the types of cognitive appraisal factors that caused the students to experience specific epistemic emotions that were recorded in their emotional diaries. The emotional diaries and interview data were analyzed using the constant comparative method of qualitative analysis. As a result, it was found that students experienced various positive and negative epistemic emotions. In addition, the cognitive appraisal factors experienced by the students were categorized into curriculum knowledge, experimental materials, experimental content, students, teachers, themselves, and integrated factors. We discussed that students' epistemic emotions are constructed cognitively and socially and that students inevitably experience negative epistemic emotions during science classes.

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.7-33
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• 2021

With a view to contributing to the epistemological and methodological debates in Southeast Asian Studies, the aim of this paper is to examine critically the epistemic concepts and approaches in the social sciences and then to seek an epistemic reflexivity and its potential methodological applications to Southeast Asian Studies. Although the field of social sciences has attempted to search for a means of tackling the ontological and epistemological dilemmas in its major paradigms, Southeast Asian Studies still demands a more 'actor-centered' epistemic account of reflexive interaction between actors and social structures. Bearing in mind the need for a more 'actor-centered' epistemic approach, this paper continues to discuss the 'epistemic reflexivity' in the social sciences and its potential applications to Southeast Asian Studies. In this paper, I will consider 'epistemic reflexivity' as an alternative methodological orientation. It emerges as interlinked with the ontological standpoint of what is called 'reflexive approaches' and its application to the detailed 'reflexive methodology' which I am proposing in this paper. In doing so, this paper discusses the autobiographical experiences of the author arising from his ethnographic field research in North Sulawesi, Indonesia and their implication for a reflexive methodology in Southeast Asian Studies. In conclusion, the paper argues that we need a 'more actor-centered' epistemic framework to compensate for the epistemological and methodological dilemmas in the social sciences and the alternative framework will equip Southeast Asian Studies with a reflexive methodology relevant to the life-dynamics of the social world in the process of developing its inquiries, methodological technics, analysis, and validation.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.59-72
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to show that epistemic considerations can be used meaningfully in the argumentation of elementary students, and to provide data on students' epistemic considerations that will be the basis for designing and evaluating scientific argumentation. The epistemic considerations in students' small group argumentations were explored based on Epistemic Considerations in Students' Epistemologies in Practice: EIP' suggested by Berland et al. (2016). The major results of this study are as follows: First, epistemic considerations in elementary school students' small group argumentation appeared in all four aspects: Nature, generality, justification and audience. The epistemic considerations varied according to context in each discussion situation. Second, epistemic considerations did not exist independently. They influenced each other and helped to reveal new types of considerations. The results of this study confirmed that argumentation can be used in elementary school science class. Understanding how students are involved in argumentation and how these epistemic considerations can affect students' argumentation can be helpful to teachers who design and evaluate small group argumentation. Students' achievement level affected epistemic considerations but learning approach types did not affect on. In addition, epistemic considerations may have a positive or negative effect on each other depending on the discussion situation in the process of interaction. So consideration of normative argumentation rules and teaching strategies should be considered in order for epistemic considerations to positively affect each other.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.245-254
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• 2007

It is an orthodox in epistemology that only those things that affect the truth conduciveness of a belief are relevant to the epistemic rationality of the belief. I criticize this orthodox. In this paper, 1 claim that the epistemic worth of a subject affects the epistemic rationality of inquiries and resulting beliefs. More specifically, I argue that it is epistemically irrational to conduct an inquiry when it is about something unworthy of knowing, and that the epistemic irrationality of an inquiry in this sense makes the resulting beliefs epistemically irrational. After presenting my argument, I defend it from various possible criticisms. Then I explicate the implications of my argument that opposes the core assumptions of contemporary epistemology.

• Korean Journal of Logic
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.269-300
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• 2018

In his recent three papers, Joohan Lee defends the following three theses. First, an ordinary term 'believes' is polysemous in that it can refer to three different types of mental attitudes; that is, it can refer to a belief as an involuntary mental disposition, or a pragmatic acceptance as a voluntary mental action, or an epistemic acceptance as a different voluntary mental action. Second, a person's pragmatic acceptance of a proposition is his voluntary mental action which takes it to be true for pragmatic reasons, despite the fact that there is no adequate epistemic evidence for the proposition, whereas a person's epistemic acceptance of a proposition is his voluntary mental action which takes it to be true for epistemic reasons, despite the fact that there is a pragmatic reason to the contrary. Third, mental attitudes to which epistemic norms apply are epistemic acceptances as voluntary mental actions, rather than beliefs as involuntary mental dispositions. If these theses are correct, then they will have important implications for contemporary epistemology. In this paper, however, I argue that Joohan Lee is not successful in defending these theses.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.137-173
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• 2021

Research and national standards, such as the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in the United States, promote the development and implementation of K-12 interdisciplinary curricula integrating the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and computer science (STEM+CS). However, little research has explored how teachers provide epistemic support in interdisciplinary contexts or the factors that inform teachers' epistemic support in STEM+CS activities. The goal of this paper is to articulate how interdisciplinary instruction complicates epistemic knowledge and resources needed for teachers' instructional decision-making. Toward these ends, this paper builds upon existing models of teachers' instructional decision-making in individual STEM+CS disciplines to highlight specific challenges and opportunities of interdisciplinary approaches on classroom epistemic supports. First, we offer considerations as to how teachers can provide epistemic support for students to engage in disciplinary practices across mathematics, science, engineering, and computer science. We then support these considerations using examples from our studies in elementary classrooms using integrated STEM+CS curriculum materials. We focus on an elementary school context, as elementary teachers necessarily integrate disciplines as part of their teaching practice when enacting NGSS-aligned curricula. Further, we argue that as STEM+CS interdisciplinary curricula in the form of NGSS-aligned, project-based units become more prevalent in elementary settings, careful attention and support needs to be given to help teachers not only engage their students in disciplinary practices across STEM+CS disciplines, but also to understand why and how these disciplinary practices should be used. Implications include recommendations for the design of professional learning experiences and curriculum materials.