Background: The modern world is rife with complex challenges that require citizens to weigh multiple, conflicting claims and competing methods for discerning truth from falsehood. Such evaluations depend highly upon prior knowledge. Therefore, the goal of epistemic education is the cultivation of apt epistemic performance: successfully achieving…

For high school students to develop scientific understanding and reasoning, it is essential that they engage in epistemic cognition and scientific argumentation. In the current study, we used the AIR model (i.e., Aims and values, epistemic Ideals, and Reliable processes) to examine high school students' epistemic cognition and argumentation as…

Epistemic cognition involves the thinking executed as people discern what they know versus what they question, doubt, or disbelieve. Effective or adaptive epistemic cognition underlies the higher-order thinking required for life in the 21st century and has been positively correlated with academic achievement. As such, researchers have designed a…