Abstract
Scholars have studied epistemologicaldevelopment – or how one understands knowledgeand knowing – of college students for manyyears. Research in this domain has includedbenchmarking studies of epistemologicaldevelopment, examinations of how curricularinnovations impact epistemology, and somestudies of differences in epistemologicaldevelopment based on disciplinary areas. Thelatter group of studies has generally focusedon differences in epistemological beliefs forstudents who are studying in two differentdomains (e.g., nursing students versus physicsstudents). In this study, we qualitativelyinvestigate whether the epistemologicalperspectives of 60 science/engineering collegestudents differs across the disciplinary areasof the sciences and the humanities. Our resultsindicate that such differences do exist andinclude a proposed grounded theory thatdescribes how students' epistemologies may varyacross knowledge domains.
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Palmer, B., Marra, R.M. College student epistemological perspectives across knowledge domains: A proposed grounded theory. Higher Education 47, 311–335 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:HIGH.0000016445.92289.f1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:HIGH.0000016445.92289.f1