Students’ beliefs about knowledge, or their personal epistemologies, are critical components of the learning process. Researchers and educators need to understand how portrayals of knowledge in the classroom shape personal epistemology development. Using a quasi-experimental design, an organic chemistry instructor taught a traditional, lecture-based course and a constructivist-based interactive-learning course. Students (N = 270) completed three surveys assessing personal epistemology and perceptions of constructivism in the classroom. Although the interactive-learning classroom did not seem to affect personal epistemology, evidence suggested that perceptions of a complex learning environment predicted changes in personal epistemology. Students’ initial epistemic beliefs predicted how they perceived the classroom environment. Results also supported an epistemic alignment hypothesis: students performed better on the final exam when their beliefs matched the course structure. Findings support an interactive model between students’ personal epistemologies and epistemic climate and highlight the challenges of changing beliefs through single-semester classroom interventions.

Excerpt: Constructivism is an epistemology, a theory of knowledge used to explain how we know what we know. We believe that a constructivist epistemology is useful to teachers if used as a referent; that is, as a way to make sense of what they see, think, and do. Our research indicates that teacher’s beliefs about how people learn (their personal epistemology), whether verbalized or not, often help them make sense of, and guide, their practice.

In this article the authors challenge contemporary epistemological research within educational settings. After a reconciliation of the current models which treat epistemological beliefs as static and mechanical, the authors present a teaching experience to illustrate their enactivist view that epistemological beliefs should be conceptualized as fluid and dynamic constructs, emerging in web-like configurations. Answers to epistemological questions unfold within the interstices and mutual interactions between people and their environment. Boundaries between student – teacher, individual – community, cognition – bodily experience are becoming blurred. From this enactivist perspective the researcher’s role changes considerably. Instead of determining teachers’ personal traits and epistemological make-up, the researcher should sensitize teachers to the subtle ways epistemological beliefs are enmeshed within their day-to-day professional lives, focusing on the complex fabric of the teaching practice.

Key words: contemporary epistemological research, education, enactivism, lived experiences, personal epistemology

Empirical phenomenology – study of lived subjective experience is the latest addition to the interdisciplinary efforts aiming at understanding the human mind. We present the research, which was originally aimed at investigating the experiences of Holotropic Breathwork, however, results of the analysis convinced us to move the focus of our interest to differences between individual ways of constructing experience. We have identified three types of personal epistemologies (i.e. ways of constructing the subjective experience) and found the correlation with individual attitudes towards self-exploration. The paper aims at providing a novel model with regard to how experience is constructed and expands the understanding of the limitations of the phenomenological interview techniques.

Key words: empirical phenomenology, explicative interview, constructing experiences, personal epistemology