Domain specificity of personal epistemology

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International Journal of Educational Research 45 (2006) 85–95 www.elsevier.com/locate/ijedures

Domain specificity of personal epistemology: Resolved questions, persistent issues, new models Barbara K. Hofer Psychology Department, McCardell Bicentennial Hall, Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT 05753, USA

Abstract Beliefs that individuals hold about knowledge and knowing, or what has been termed ‘‘personal epistemology’’, are related to learning and achievement in complex ways. These beliefs are also differentiated by discipline (e.g., math, science, history) as well as by judgment domains (e.g., personal taste, morality, meaning). This commentary on five articles on the domain specificity of epistemic beliefs outlines the persistent issues in this field of research, including issues of terminology, methodology, and the interrelation of domain specificity and domain generality, and provides an overview of how the authors address these concerns. Also included are directions for future research and educational implications. r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Epistemic beliefs; Personal epistemology; Domain specificity; Knowledge and knowing

1. Introduction What beliefs do individuals hold about knowledge and knowing, and how are these beliefs related to learning? Does epistemic understanding develop in a patterned and sequenced manner? What is the dimensionality of this development? Do epistemic beliefs transcend domains or are they particular to them? These are some of the fundamental questions that have occupied a good number of researchers in educational and developmental psychology in recent decades, as the authors of the articles in this special issue so competently attest. The latter question, regarding domain specificity and domain Tel.: +1 802 443 2534; fax: +1 802 443 2072.

E-mail address: [email protected]. 0883-0355/$ - see front matter r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijer.2006.08.006

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B.K. Hofer / Int. J. Educ. Res. 45 (2006) 85–95

generality, is one that is intricately connected to the others. Whether domain specificity exists seems to have been resolved affirmatively and definitively (Hofer, 2006; Muis, Bendixen, & Haerle, 2006), but related issues have demanded further attention. In particular, we need to clarify what we mean by ‘‘domain’’, to explicate the relationship between domain specificity and generality, to develop methods of assessing both domain specificity and generality in a consistent manner, and to examine the beliefs of both teachers and learners. The authors of the articles in this issue have made significant contributions to addressing these complex issues. Their work also lays careful groundwork for future empirical investigation, as evidenced in the charges these scholars outline for others; the continuing points of contention among them also point the way for interesting additional research. Overall, these articles convey the breadth of thinking and research that is encompassed by those exploring domain specificity in epistemic understanding. Among this set of five papers we have three that provide empirical studies: one addresses beliefs of junior high school students within the discipline of mathematics, one focuses on domain general world views of teachers, and another explores how students’ beliefs differ by judgment domains. These authors all use differing instrumentation and methodological approaches, define ‘‘domain’’ differently, and focus on diverse age groups. The other two papers are conceptual and theoretical in their focus, offering models designed to further understanding of the relationship between domain generality and specificity, drawing on empirical evidence. In response to this interesting and wide-ranging set of papers, I outline what I see as the critical issues of domain specificity and generality of epistemic beliefs as addressed by these papers and review how the authors have approached them. In conclusion I suggest additional research and address implications for education. 2. Central questions of domain specificity and generality Read as a group, these articles raise a host of critical questions about individuals’ beliefs about knowledge and knowing, or what is often termed ‘‘personal epistemology’’ (Hofer & Pintrich, 2002), and the level of specificity at which they operate. Fortunately, the authors also help lead the way toward some resolution of these persistent concerns. The first of these issues, as Limon notes in her article, is the very meaning of ‘‘domain’’, a critical question to resolve for this field to advance. 2.1. What do researchers mean by ‘‘domain’’ in regard to domain specificity and generality of personal epistemology? The issue of ‘‘domain’’ in regard to knowledge has been a difficult and complex topic within education (Alexander, 1992; Sternberg, 1989) and has a fascinating history, elegantly traced in a recent review (Stevens, Wineburg, Herrenkohl, & Bell, 2005). It is no surprise that the term is equally elusive—or is at least as polysemic, as Limon notes—when extended to modify beliefs about knowledge. Among the authors of these five articles, domain is referred to most often as synonymous with discipline. A notable departure from this is the work by Mason, Boldrin, and Zurlo, who have utilized the term in a manner consistent with several other researchers (Kuhn, Cheney, & Weinstock, 2000; Wainryb, Shaw, Langley, Cottam, & Lewis, 2004), largely those working in the tradition of developmental psychology, to refer to areas of judgment, such as taste, aesthetics, and

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values. These are distinctly different approaches to investigating ‘‘domain’’; unfortunately the field does not yet have terminology that highlights such distinctions, and much of the discussion of epistemic specificity is not inclusive of these multiple approaches. A recent review of empirical research on domain differences (likely to be of interest to any readers of this current issue) included only those studies that approached domain as discipline (Muis et al., 2006). The judgment domain research has not yet been surveyed comprehensively, perhaps because there is simply less published work in this area to date. Domain need not be confined to these two approaches, but might also refer to other arenas of life, such as work, social, personal, familial, political, health, etc. (Pintrich, 2002). In addition, Olafson and Shraw, in their extension of beliefs research to include teachers, suggest that teacher epistemic beliefs are related more to process than to content, and call for future research on ‘‘process domains’’ and not just disciplines. As always, the richness and complexity of this area of study arise in part from the various disciplinary areas of psychology and education that have engaged the topic, and bringing clarity to a field as broad based as this one is difficult. I propose, however, that it might be useful to think more comprehensively about the term domain and to acknowledge the multiple forms it can take, with disciplines and judgment domains, for example, as two representations of this broader construct. To equate domain knowledge as comparable to disciplinary knowledge (as appears to be the case in much of the research on domain-specific epistemic beliefs) implies a restriction of the category of knowledge to schooled knowledge. Individuals have many other categories of knowledge—as well as epistemic beliefs about what they know and how they know it within these other categories—and this also deserves the attention of researchers. In addition, individuals also bring their epistemic understanding to a host of encounters with new information (Hofer, 2004a) and to complex, ill-structured, real-world problems (King & Kitchener, 2004; Kuhn, 1991; Kuhn & Weinstock, 2002; Weinstock & Cronin, 2003). This does not diminish the need for attending to the role of discipline-specific beliefs, but this suggests the need for caution in assuming the term to be congruent with domain-specific beliefs. The call for more clarity in terminology proposed by Op’t Eynde, De Corte, and Vershaffel is thus important to heed. However, their suggestion to utilize ‘‘dimensions’’ to refer to domain-specific beliefs seems to conflict with current usage of the term (and does not address the distinctions highlighted above). The term ‘‘dimension’’ has been utilized consistently within epistemology research to suggest the componential nature of epistemic development and beliefs (Hofer & Pintrich, 1997; Schommer, 1990). This ‘‘multidimensional’’ aspect of beliefs has been a prominent feature of research for the last 15 years and is an important aspect of ongoing research and model development, as exemplified by the work of Buehl and Alexander (this issue). Perhaps the ideal would be simply to use the word ‘‘discipline’’ rather than ‘‘domain’’ if that is what is intended, and to modify the term domain, as in ‘‘judgment domain’’ or ‘‘process domain,’’ when it is used to suggest other categories. Alternatively, as Muis et al. (2006) propose, using the term ‘‘academic domains’’ when referring to disciplines also appropriately modifies and delimits the term domain. 2.2. What forms do these domain specific beliefs take? To elaborate further on the first question, within each of these categories (domain as academic discipline vs. judgment domains) there are further distinctions in approach, and

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this is an aspect of research that also needs more precision. Without this, readers are seldom able to make the necessary comparisons across work, nor are educators able to extract meaningful implications. 2.2.1. Domain as discipline As I have elaborated elsewhere (Hofer, 2005), researchers have explored two types of disciplinary beliefs. Building on the initial work on general epistemic beliefs (e.g., ‘‘Truth is unchanging’’), researchers have investigated both disciplinary perspectives on beliefs (e.g., ‘‘Truth is unchanging in this subject’’), and discipline-specific beliefs, or beliefs that are about or particular to a discipline (e.g., science beliefs, such as ‘‘A good way to know if something is true is to do an experiment’’). Unfortunately, this is often confounded in the literature (see Hofer, 2006). The growing body of work on beliefs about knowledge and knowing within disciplines such as history, mathematics, and science is quite distinct from the work that has been done to assess whether individuals hold epistemic beliefs that differ by discipline. The field would benefit from greater precision in this regard. In the articles in this issue, Op ’t Eynde, De Corte, and Verschaffel argue for a ‘‘bottomup approach’’ that begins with disciplinary understanding and with what students believe particular to the discipline. This is clearly in contrast to the work they critique (Buehl, Alexander, & Murphy, 2002; Hofer, 2000), but I would posit that these two approaches have different aims and that both lines of work are important to maintain. The research on domain specificity that utilizes domain general questions applied to the discipline (what Op ’t Eynde and colleagues call the ‘‘top-down approach’’) has been fruitful in illuminating the consistent and coherent structure of beliefs across disciplines as well as in demonstrating the variation in responses to particular dimensions of beliefs, such as certainty of knowledge or justification for knowing (Buehl & Alexander, this issue; Hofer, 2000). By contrast, research on discipline-specific epistemic perspectives (the ‘‘bottom-up approach’’) has been useful in identifying beliefs that are unique to individual fields. Op ’t Eynde and colleagues contribute to this approach with their current paper, focusing on the structure of mathematics-related belief systems, although only one subset of the system is identified as epistemological. Of all the disciplines, mathematics seems to have been given the most attention in regard to discipline-specific epistemic beliefs (Muis, 2004), with ongoing attention to science (Conley, Pintrich, Vekiri, & Harrison, 2004; Sandoval, 2005) and history (Wineburg, 1991, 1998) as well. More research is needed that both specifies the types of beliefs particular to disciplines and their influence on learning, as well as their relation to other discipline-related beliefs, the primary issue that Op ’t Eynde et al. address thoroughly in their model of mathematics beliefs. Buehl and Alexander describe work that might be more in line with the ‘‘top-down’’ approach, and bring a mounting body of evidence from their empirical work to their claims about the relation between domain specificity and generality. With both approaches more agreement is needed about what beliefs are actually epistemological, however, one of the persistent problems in all this research, and a problem at both the conceptual and methodological level, as the articles in this issue attest. 2.2.2. Judgment domains Researchers who pursue domain differences in epistemology in regard to ‘‘judgment domains’’ typically have been interested in the developmental trajectory of epistemic understanding and how it is differentiated both within and between objective and


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subjective domains. Developmental psychologists have identified the primary task of epistemic development as a progression toward an integration of objectivity and subjectivity, a learning to coordinate one’s own subjective perceptions and meaning making with an evaluated stance on the knowledge of authorities and facts about ‘‘objective reality’’. Research across the life span suggests that individuals move from a position of egocentric subjectivity, prior to the acquisition of theory of mind (Burr & Hofer, 2002), through the objectivity of absolutism to the subjectivity of multiplism, with the integration of objectivity and subjectivity as the hallmark of evaluativism (Kuhn et al., 2000), a level achieved all too rarely. Research on the progression of judgments in objective and subjective domains has been particularly fruitful in research with children, as well as in real-world tasks with adults, and has helped illuminate the types of discriminations individuals make about issues of morality, facts, and taste, for example (Wainryb et al., 2004). Individuals also make judgments that progress developmentally in patterned ways. As Mansfield and Clinchy (2002) have shown, children develop an awareness of subjectivity in personal taste—the awareness that others may have different preferences that could also be valid—before they develop such subjective understanding about meaning (whether one likes a particular television show or food as opposed to what one means by ‘‘wait for a ring’’). Research on judgment domains is still in relatively nascent form and researchers have not reached consensus on the domains of inclusion, which vary by researcher and by study. In general, this type of work seems to be addressing quite different objectives than the research that focuses on disciplinary differences. Mason et al., in this issue, contributes to this area by replicating the research of Kuhn et al. (2000) in five judgment domains and investigates whether their findings extend to Italian students in both elementary and high school, with the high school students enrolled in either science or technical curricula. In line with Kuhn et al., the authors found domain-specific patterns of development in the transition from absolutism to multiplism. Thus the progression of epistemological development might be viewed as signs of the horizontal decalage that Piaget described in terms of cognitive development. This is an area that needs more attention and it is valuable to bring educational psychologists into the fold so that we might not only better define the developmental trajectory but work toward educational implications. The research of Mason, Boldrin and Zurlo also highlights the importance of testing existing models in other cultural contexts. Finally, we need more agreement on which judgment domains are important to assess. 2.3. Is there a continued need for domain-general research? Research on personal epistemology has a long tradition of domain-general models and investigations and this approach has been beneficial in delineating overall trajectories of development and their relation to education. Only one set of authors in this special issue (Olafson & Schraw) operates from this perspective, although their work departs from others in that they have addressed teachers’ worldviews rather than students’ beliefs, and explored how these views are related to classroom practice. As they acknowledge, their support for domain generality in a previous article on this research (Schraw & Olafson, 2002) was criticized by all ten respondents to that article. In the current article, they modify their claims somewhat, positing a middle ground between domain generality and domain specificity, and also state that beliefs may be adapted within and across domains. Although

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the evidence provided for such adaptability is a single case study, this at least points the way for future research that might address this possibility. The general issue of worldview as applied to teachers’ perspectives could indeed be a viable area of study, although the particular framework applied by Olafson and Schraw seems problematic. Nearly half the participants identified with two of the three worldviews, which reduces the utility of using such measures. More research is needed to assess the validity and reliability of this particular domain general approach, as well as how domain general worldviews relate to domain specific practices, as suggested by Olafson and Schraw. Their findings may also suggest the importance of examining beliefs at an appropriate level of specificity in order to better assess their influence, as Buehl and Alexander (this issue) have argued. Continued explorations of personal epistemology at the general level are certainly appropriate, when relevant to the research questions, and more research is needed that links domain general and domain specific beliefs in the development of expertise, an issue that could be pursued with teacher beliefs. 2.4. Is personal epistemology context dependent? Beliefs about knowledge and knowing exist not only in domain-dependent form, but also appear to be contextual, as several of the authors note (see Buehl & Alexander, in particular). Few researchers would likely claim that context does not play a role in both shaping and eliciting students’ epistemic beliefs, and we have increasing evidence to support this. What is contested, however, is whether beliefs exist in a context-free manner at all—what Limon, in her article, calls ‘‘pure’’ beliefs, as exemplified by Schommer-Aikins approach (Schommer-Aikins, 2004). A continuum appears to exist among researchers, from the position of ‘‘pure’’ beliefs as those separate ‘‘from the potential influences of domain and context’’ (Limon) to the position that epistemology is always enacted in context and thus needs to be studied that way (Elby & Hammer, 2001; Louca, Elby, Hammer, & Kagey, 2004). In between are those who assess how beliefs are elicited in context and those who measure beliefs in a relatively decontextualized manner but who see them as related to context. In addition, researchers often make the distinction between enacted and espoused beliefs, with a recognition that some beliefs that are articulated and expressed are different from those put into practice; the context in which beliefs are invoked and produced would be expected to have an influence. Thus it may not be surprising that Olafson and Schraw’s participants, all teacher education students in a single course, may have expected that it was appropriate to espouse a particular worldview (in the context of the course they were taking), as well as to enact the worldview that fit with the curriculum they were expected to teach. We do need to know more, however, about how teachers resolve the cognitive dissonance that presumably arises from strongly endorsing a worldview that appears incongruent with the practices of the educational systems in which they are placed, and we need to do more in our teacher education programs to prepare teachers to address such inconsistencies. Context seems to be an undertheorized and underinterpreted variable in many studies of epistemic beliefs. For example, the participants in Op ’t Eynde et al.’s study are Flemish 14-year olds enrolled in different academic tracks, a process that is often associated with different teaching practices (LeTendre, Hofer, & Shimizu, 2003), but no mention is made of how that aspect of context may have influenced students’ beliefs. If, as the authors


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claim, students’ beliefs about knowledge and knowing in mathematics are ‘‘the exponents of interactions between the individual and the context’’ then it would be beneficial to address the context of the instruction and teacher expectations of students. Similarly, Mason et al.’s findings of an apparent correlation between epistemic level and enrollment in a particular high school curriculum (either scientific or technical) may also be findings about the influence of context, although more research would be needed to tease apart the potential confounding influences. Similarly, culture is a powerful context for learning, espousing, and enacting beliefs, with a significant relationship to achievement (Stevenson, Hofer, & Randel, 2000), and more attention could be paid to the influence of culture on personal epistemology (Karabenick & Moosa, 2005). My stance on this is that we need more attention to context and less concern for whether we can effectively capture ‘‘pure’’ beliefs. I would argue that there is a middle ground between the two extremes represented in the literature on this topic, however. I would posit that one’s personal epistemology is strongly influenced by context but not isolated to context; thus, individuals hold beliefs about knowledge and knowing that are fairly coherent and congruent, but also malleable (Gill, 2004), and that these beliefs are affected by and enacted within particular contexts. For example, in a study of college students enrolled in two distinct versions of a chemistry course, each with different epistemological assumptions evident in the pedagogy and practices, I found that students were likely to think differently about chemistry as a result—whether it is perceived as certain, known, concrete, and consisting of discrete facts and formulas, or whether it is an evolving discipline to which they might even contribute (Hofer, 2004b). Unless students take additional courses in the discipline that challenge these ideas, they may continue to hold such beliefs; thus these are not beliefs that exist in context only (as Hammer and colleagues might argue). Equally important, such beliefs may also influence whether they persist in course taking, an important concern for math and science educators. I would encourage more researchers to explore the role of context in addition to issues of domain specificity. Context variables that influence, inform, shape, and elicit individuals’ beliefs about knowledge and knowing range widely and may include school vs. out-ofschool learning, classroom level variables such as pedagogical practices and forms of assessment, school level variables such as tracking practices and reward systems, transitions in schooling (e.g., elementary to middle school), and culture. All need further exploration. I applaud Buehl and Alexander’s inclusion of sociocultural context in their model of nested and reciprocal influences on epistemic beliefs and hope researchers will take up the call to investigate these processes. 2.5. What is the relationship between domain specificity and domain generality? The generally accepted resolution that epistemic beliefs do exist at both the domain general and domain-specific level makes it critical to begin to understand how these beliefs operate in relation to one another. Two prominent models (Buehl & Alexander, this issue, and Muis et al., 2006) share a remarkable number of features, drawing on existing research on domain differences as well as the general literature on knowledge and beliefs. The primary premises of these models are that epistemic beliefs exist at both the domain general and domain-specific level and are multilayered, that these beliefs are situated in a larger sociocultural context, that beliefs are multidimensional, that beliefs develop over time and in relation to education and experience, and that beliefs move from the general to

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the specific during this development. Both models have multidirectional arrows, with the authors positing a reciprocal nature of influence, although this is probably the leastspecified aspect of the models and potentially one of the most difficult hypotheses to assess. We need studies that can tease apart the influence of context in influencing the development of beliefs from the influence context has on enactment, and more longitudinal studies that address interactions over time and context. The examples provided by Buehl and Alexander regarding adaptability of beliefs also show that we need to know how context determines which beliefs might actually be perceived as adaptable by students and why—particularly when competent students display a set of beliefs that are less than optimal for deep understanding. Both models also presume that there is a ‘‘system of beliefs,’’ a prospect addressed by others as well, including Limon (this issue), Op ’t Eynde et al. (this issue), and SchommerAikins (2004). Whether this system is viewed as a more comprehensive set of beliefs regarding the discipline (Op ’t Eynde et al.) or as the larger universe of domain-general beliefs (Buehl & Alexander), this recognition that epistemic beliefs are fundamentally related and a part of a larger system is a critical component. The organization of epistemic beliefs themselves as a system may need further attention, as Limon notes, particularly in regard to whether they exist in a coherent theory-like structure (Hofer, 2004a; Hofer & Pintrich, 1997). Buehl and Alexander provide both a model and a review that offer ample opportunities for empirical study. How do knowledge beliefs interact with other beliefs, such as beliefs about ability? Are some dimensions of epistemology more salient in certain dimensions than others, as they suggest? Is belief transfer fostered by means similar to knowledge transfer? What type of classrooms foster the expression and utilization of more sophisticated beliefs? Researchers who draw on both their model and that of Muis et al. (2006) are likely to find fruitful paths for future research. 2.6. How can we best measure domain specificity? Measurement issues have been a pressing concern in research on personal epistemology at the domain-general level (Hofer & Pintrich, 1997), and this is no less the case in measures of domain specificity. The articles in this issue use widely different measures, employing both quantitative and qualitative approaches, and range from Likert-type scales to interviews and require varying degrees of inference. Assessing comparability of outcomes is nearly impossible in such cases, and as Op ’t Eynde notes, equally important in such comparisons is the discrepancy in what is actually being measured. The challenges in this regard are large, as the field still has no consensus on terminology, ontology (Hofer, 2004c), or dimensionality. The question of how we might measure domain specificity will depend on what we think we are measuring, how context bound we believe it to be, and what types of research questions we want to answer. For many educational psychologists, these research questions are increasingly about the relation between epistemic beliefs and other cognitive processes (e.g., conceptual change, motivation) and achievement. We cannot answer those questions productively, nor provide useful suggestions for practitioners, until we address some of these underlying issues with greater consensus. In addition, in our haste to address some of these questions, we are utilizing instruments that are quite blunt in their approach, as these authors acknowledge. For example, the simple espousal of the existence of diverse views is likely to


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be an inadequate indication of an epistemological level (Mason et al.), and extracting ‘‘worldviews’’ from an individual’s degree of agreement with a choice of three ‘‘teaching style summaries’’ (Olafson & Schraw) seems to suggest an unusually high level of inference. One of the important conclusions that arises from the articles in this issue is that measurements need to be sensitive to the domain differences they are designed to tap. As noted in earlier studies (Buehl et al., 2002; Hofer, 2000) and further described by both Op ’t Eynde et al. and Buehl & Alexander, research studies conducted with domain-general instruments seem to support more domain generality than those conducted with instruments that specify particular disciplines. In addition, instruments that measure only a limited facet of what is conceptually modeled also hamper our investigations (Buehl et al., 2002; Hofer, 2000). Given the range of research questions that need investigation, personal epistemology is clearly a field that benefits from multiple methods: surveys, interviews, think-aloud protocols, classroom observations, etc. What we need, however, is more refinement within each of the categories so that we are better able to make sense of the research findings, replicate appropriately, and advance the field. 2.7. Conclusion and suggestions I commend the authors of the articles in this special issue for providing both empirical and theoretical contributions to the growing discussion on domain specificity of epistemic beliefs. They have helped to underscore the importance of this field for understanding both student and teacher beliefs and have paved the way for future research. These articles also highlight the need for deeper conversations among researchers so that we can work toward agreement on terminology and improved instrumentation for measuring the constructs of interest. Toward that end, I recommend more collaborative work in the years ahead so that we might forge a shared theoretical understanding and cooperative testing of models. We also need more opportunities to discuss these issues rather than just respond to one another, which can take place through conference sessions that are more interactive and less presentational, as well as small working conferences. We could consider pursuing joint grant seeking to test theoretical models in multiple settings, pursue collaborative revision of existing instrumentation, and carry out cross-national studies that enable us to better assess the role of culture and the transcendent aspects of epistemology. This kind of programmatic attention to the primary issues of construct clarity and methodological development will permit researchers to better engage the larger issues at hand. We need more research on both disciplinary beliefs and judgment domains, and more attention to testing the models of interaction among the levels of beliefs, as proposed in this issue. We need increased focus on the connection between epistemic beliefs and conceptual change (Mason & Boscolo, 2004), understanding of complex topics (Sinatra, Southerland, McConaughy, & Demastes, 2003), types of learning (Sandoval, 2005), motivation (Buehl & Alexander, 2005), and transfer across disciplines (Hofer, 2004a). As always, researchers in this area need to do more to educate teachers about the power of epistemic beliefs as well as to help educators at all levels consider the value of addressing epistemic understanding. Learning what it means to know in a field and how knowledge develops is a critical part of developing an understanding of a discipline, and yet is often ignored or assumed. Teaching how one evaluates knowledge, coordinates evidence, and makes judgments about truth claims is a fundamental aspect of epistemic awareness, and

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