Beyond epistemological deficits: Incorporating flexible epistemological views into fine-grained cognitive dynamics

TL;DR

This paper explores how integrating multiple, context-dependent epistemological views into cognitive models can better explain students' mathematical sense-making, avoiding deficit-based explanations and highlighting the complexity of learning processes.

Contribution

It introduces a framework for incorporating flexible, context-sensitive epistemological stances into cognitive dynamics models, advancing beyond traditional deficit-based approaches.

Findings

Students' epistemological beliefs influence their problem-solving strategies.

Context-dependent epistemological stances can explain variations in mathematical reasoning.

The model avoids deficit explanations by embracing epistemological complexity.

Abstract

Researchers have argued against deficit-based explanations of students' troubles with mathematical sense-making, pointing instead to factors such as epistemology: students' beliefs about the nature of knowledge and learning can hinder them from activating and integrating productive knowledge they have. But such explanations run the risk of substituting an epistemological deficit for a concepts/skills deficit. Our analysis of an undergraduate engineering major avoids this "deficit trap" by incorporating multiple, context-dependent epistemological stances into his cognitive dynamics.