Ways of Knowing as Learning Styles: Learning MAGIC with a Partner

Abstract

Ninety-six pairs of college students, relatively unacquainted with one another were asked to learn a novel and complex fantasy card game in a 50-min videotaped session, using first a scripted set of turns and written explanations of game rules and procedures, then playing until the end of the session or until a clear winner emerged. They then filled out a series of rating scales about their perceptions of and reactions to the session and their partner. Last, students filled out the Attitudes Toward Thinking and Learning Scale (ATTLS), a survey instrument that measures purported stable individual differences in epistemological approaches to learning and knowledge. Significant differences in perception of partners and the learning session were correlated with epistemological approach. Moreover, raters blind to students' epistemological approaches rated congeniality of the sessions differentially as function of the approaches of target students. Discrepancies between the partners' epistemological approaches led to differences in their ratings of their enjoyment of the learning session. Connected knowing (CK) and separate knowing (SK) differed as a function of participant's gender, as expected; however, scores were unrelated to any of the performance measures. This suggests once again that epistemological approaches do not affect the amount of learning that occurs, but rather the attitude a learner holds toward the process.