Epistemological Developmental Theories

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of current epistemological developmental the-ories. It starts with a conceptualization of personal epistemology, i.e., asking where personal epistemology is situated in a bigger picture of cognition or the cognitive process. Next, it reviews current cognitive developmental theories in personal epistemology, including Perry's theory and its extensions over the past 40 years. A synthesis of these theories leads to modifications of Perry's theory, which is used in this work. 2.1 Conceptualization of Personal Epistemology Personal epistemology can trace its origin back to Piaget (1950, 1972) when he described his theory of intellectual development of children (referred to as generic epistemology). His theory on intellectual development initiated the interest of psychologists and educators in cognitive developmental theories. A central theme in his theory is a developmental progress through different stages throughout child-hood and early adolescence. This central theme of a developmental progress in relation to knowing and knowledge is followed by many of the current models of epistemological development (Hofer and Pintrich 1997). Before I review current models and theories in personal epistemology, I would like to first situate the development that will be discussed in this work within the broader territory of cognition. As shown in Table 2.1, Kitchener (1983) and Kuhn (2000) both distinguished different levels of cognitive processing. Personal epistemology refers to what Kitchener (1983) defined as the third level of cognition, epistemic cognition (the first two levels are cognition and metacog-nition). It refers to reflections on " the limits of knowledge, " " the certainty of knowledge, " and " the criteria for knowing " (Kitchener 1983, p. 222). In Kitchener's discussion about cognitive processing and dealing with ill-structured problems, he proposed a three-level model including Cognition,