This study is framed in the social perspective of Epistemology of Science, and it aims to examine the epistemic operations performed by high school students while engaged in a role-play about food safety that requires them to engage in both argumentation and decision-making practices. The epistemic operations are examined on two different levels:…

The episodic context account of retrieval-based learning proposes that retrieval enhances subsequent retention because people must think back to and reinstate a prior learning context. Three experiments directly tested this central assumption of the context account. Subjects studied word lists and then either restudied the words under intentional…

Classroom-based assessments have the potential to enhance validity by facilitating the assessment of important skills that are difficult to assess in written examinations. Such assessments tend to be marked by teachers. To ensure consistent marking standards, quality assurance procedures are needed. In the context of continued debate over the…

This study investigated how well seventh-grade students (n = 1,434) evaluated the credibility of online information in science. The analysis examined the extent to which evaluation appeared to share aspects of other elements of online research and comprehension, including locating, synthesizing, and communicating. This study also investigated the…

This three phase longitudinal multiple-case study, framed by positioning theory, investigated how four novice teachers learned to use professional judgment in their literacy instruction. Data sources from coursework, student teaching, and novice teaching were included. Interviews, observations, researchers' observational notes, and school and…

In a multicultural democratic society, the increasing demographic diversity within and across nation-states calls attention to pedagogical knowledge and skills needed to engage students in discussing controversial cultural issues (CCIs). Woven in the intersection of democratic education and multicultural education, this qualitative study sought to…

Background: The "cognitive incongruity model of epistemic beliefs and emotions" states that if students' beliefs about the nature of knowledge (e.g., knowledge as simple and absolute) are incompatible with the epistemic nature of learning materials (e.g., complex and contradictory), cognitive incongruity arises. This, in turn, entails…

This article introduces a set of evidence-based principles to guide evaluation practice in contexts where evaluation knowledge is collaboratively produced by evaluators and stakeholders. The data from this study evolved in four phases: two pilot phases exploring the desirability of developing a set of principles; an online questionnaire survey…

There are significant parallels between interdisciplinarity and phenomenology. Interdisciplinary conscious processes involve identifying relevant disciplines, evaluating each disciplinary insight, and creating common ground. In an analogous way, phenomenology involves conscious processes of epoché, reduction, and eidetic variation. Each stresses…

This article focuses on media literacy education for college students. First, we conducted psychometric analyses to verify the properties of the "Critical Evaluation and Analysis of Media (CEAM)" scale. CEAM measures college students' self-reported practices for critically evaluating and analyzing the credibility, audience, and technical…

Science educators are typically dismayed by the failure of students to use relevant scientific knowledge when reasoning about socioscientific issues. Except for the well-documented association between having more knowledge about a topic and a tendency to use that knowledge, the influences on students' evaluation of information in socioscientific…

This dissertation examines the use of dialogic discussion to improve young adolescents' ability to critically evaluate web sites. An intervention unit comprised three iterations of an instructional cycle in which students independently annotated web sites about controversial issues and discussed the reliability of those sites in dialogic…

Background: Although professional development (PD) programs often use video, extraneous information during video viewing can distract teachers. We developed a discourse visualization tool, the Classroom Discourse Analyzer (CDA), to support teachers' reflections on classroom discourse in video-based PD workshops. Methods: We used a randomized…

The aim of the present study was to examine science and non-science education secondary school teachers' skill to evaluate arguments, and how this skill relates to their skill to construct arguments and to their perceptions about their ability to teach argumentation skills effectively. The study also examined whether teachers' argument skills and…

An important aspect of perspective-taking ability is the appreciation that mental states such as beliefs, desires, and knowledge change over time. The current study focused specifically on 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds' understanding that they will have knowledge in the future that they do not currently possess--for example, that when they are…