Knowledge Building Inquiry and Reflection in Developing Children's Epistemology of Science

This study examined how elementary-school students developed their epistemology of science in a knowledge-building environment that involves idea-driven discourse and reflective inquiry. Twenty-two grade-4 students participated inquiring into a topic in earth science; they worked collectively on knowledge-building inquiry supported by Knowledge Forum®, a computer-supported collaborative learning environment. The key designs included students engaging in idea-driven discourse on Knowledge Forum augmented with epistemic talk and reflection, and linking the understanding of their own inquiry process with scientists’ inquiry. Results indicated that students changed towards more sophisticated views of science from concrete-absolutist to evolving views of science. Analysis of classroom events illustrated how students reflected on their inquiry and KF discourse in relation to epistemic features of scientific practice, and developing the notions that they can be little scientists emulating the practice of scientists. Implications of designing knowledge building enriched with explicit and collective reflection to promote epistemic change are discussed. Introduction It is widely recognized that students’ epistemology of science, what they understand about the nature of science and scientific inquiry, is important both as an educational goal and for its role in scientific understanding (Elby, Macrander, & Hammer, 2016). Current reforms in science education emphasize scientific practices as ways students develop and use scientific ideas (NRC, 2012, and the Next Generation Science Standards, NGSS). These changes indicate the need to shift from hands-on and activity-based science to helping students engage in authentic inquiry working together to build knowledge. For students to develop scientific practice, they also need to think like scientists and develop ways to think about what science is about, what it means to develop scientific ideas, and how scientists go about creating knowledge; scientific practice involves epistemic understandings of science. The emphasis of scientific epistemology and science practice can also be related to the social-situated perspective of learning in which students learn through participating in a community of practice -Scientific practice involves collective inquiry to construct explanations and scientific discourse. There is increasing interest in examining students’ science practices related to epistemological development (Elby et al., 2016) but relatively less attention has been given to examining scientific epistemology from a community of learning perspective supported by technology. This study uses the knowledge building approach (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2014) premised on the idea that participants, even as school-aged children, can be a community of scientists working creatively with ideas and, adding value to the community. While knowledge-building research has made substantial progress in scientific inquiry, there is still limited systematic investigation of how knowledge-building works to help young students develop more sophisticated scientific epistemology (Lin & Chan, 2018). A key theme in science education examines explicit reflection in promoting students’ understanding of nature of science (NOS) (Lederman, Abd-El-Khalick, Bell & Schwartz, 2002) and there are diverse approaches for developing explicit reflection. This study investigated how knowledge building inquiry and practice enriched with reflective discourse can promote students’ scientific epistemology. Epistemology of science Different research strands have examined students’ understandings of the nature of science (Elby et al., 2016). Researchers have adopted psychometric and multi-dimensional approaches (Hofer & Pintrich, 1997), such as exploring certainty, source, justification, and development of knowledge to examine epistemic beliefs in science; intervention studies have examined changes in epistemology based on these dimensions (Conley et al., 2004). Research in science education (Lederman et al., 2002) focused on examining the nature of science (NOS), including its empirical, tentative, creative and inferential aspects. Another tradition has examined how students understand the nature of science as constructive and evolving (Carey et al., 1989) involving idea-driven and theory-building processes (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2014). Carey et al. (1989) examined children’s scientific epistemology and identified three general patterns: science as simply carrying out activities; science as tentative and uncertain; science as a constructive process for generating deeper explanations of natural ICLS 2018 Proceedings 895 © ISLS phenomena. Smith et al. (2000) examined children’s scientific epistemology in terms of how students understand the goals of science, the nature of scientific questions, purpose of experiments, and the nature of the idea-change process. Chuy et al. (2010) identified four aspects of fourth graders’ understanding of science: the nature of theoretical progress; theory-fact understanding; the role of ideas in scientific inquiry; and, invention. Chinn, Buckland and Samarapungavan (2011) developed an epistemic cognition model for examining epistemic goals, the structure of knowledge, and justification involving epistemic aims, ideals, and reliability of knowledge; epistemic cognition needs to be examined in situated and complex learning environments. Sinatra (2016) argued for the importance of examining both what students say what they believe about science, and how they engage in scientific process and practices. Sandoval (2005) postulated two kinds of epistemology, the formal epistemology of what students understand about the nature of science and scientists’ work, and the practical epistemology pertaining to students’ understandings of their own inquiry. These studies indicate the need to examine the intertwined relations of students’ epistemic understandings of science and their epistemic practices of building knowledge in science. Knowledge building for epistemic development Knowledge building is an educational model that postulates students taking collective cognitive responsibility for community knowledge advancement (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2014). In knowledge building classrooms, a community or class of students posted problems, co-constructed explanations, and refined their theories on Knowledge Forum® (KF) in ways that emulate what scientists do in advancing the frontier of knowledge. Knowledge building is premised on the idea of students creating and improving new knowledge working as a community of scientists; focus is placed on how science knowledge is generated involving explanation and theory building. Researchers have investigated knowledge building from the vantage point of epistemic development. Hakkarainen (2003) analyzed the discourse on CSILE (an earlier version of KF), and showed school-aged children were engaged in explanatory-driven epistemological inquiry like scientists. Chuy et al. (2010) examined how students experiencing knowledge building had more sophisticated views about science compared to those using project learning. We have also examined the role of knowledge-building designs using explicit reflection to promote grade 5/6 students’ epistemology of science (Lin & Chan, 2018; in press). In this study, we followed our previous work and designed a KB environment focusing on collective inquiry, discourse and reflection, extending the design incorporating model building in earth sciences, a different curricula area. There are two design themes: First, we emphasize students’ idea-driven inquiry and discourse both online and offline, when they worked together for idea improvement and to advance collective knowledge. In doing so, students would better understand nature of progressive science and theory building. A second theme is explicit epistemic reflection in a community KB context There are diverse meanings of explicit reflection, and in this study “explicit” refers to an intentional design and not didactic or “telling. ” “reflection” involves students reflecting on their inquiry/ discourse in a collective space; and “epistemic” involves the notion that reflection is conducted in relation to epistemic criteria/standards. Specifically, we examined how young students develop an understanding of science, focusing on linking their practical epistemology (what they experience in their knowledge-building inquiry) and formal epistemology (what they understand about scientists’ inquiry) (Lin & Chan, 2018). In sum, this study aimed to examine how a KB environment facilitates scientific epistemology through knowledge-building inquiry and reflection. We examined the following questions: (1) What characterized students’ views of science and how were they related to domain understanding and KF engagement? (2) How did knowledge-building classroom processes and epistemic talk/reflection support students’ scientific epistemology and practice? And (3) How did students link their inquiry processes with scientists’ inquiry processes in developing their understanding of nature of science?