ERIC Number: EJ1089263
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016
Pages: 11
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0009-3920
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Epistemic Trust and Education: Effects of Informant Reliability on Student Learning of Decimal Concepts
Durkin, Kelley; Shafto, Patrick
Child Development, v87 n1 p154-164 Jan-Feb 2016
The epistemic trust literature emphasizes that children's evaluations of informants' trustworthiness affects learning, but there is no evidence that epistemic trust affects learning in academic domains. The current study investigated how reliability affects decimal learning. Fourth and fifth graders (N = 122; M[subscript age] = 10.1 years) compared examples from consistently accurate and inaccurate informants ("consistent") or informants who were each sometimes accurate and inaccurate ("inconsistent"). Fourth graders had higher conceptual knowledge and fewer misconceptions in the consistent condition than the inconsistent condition, and vice versa for fifth graders due to differences in prior exposure to decimals. Given the same examples, learning differed depending on informant reliability. Thus, epistemic trust is a malleable factor that affects learning in an academic domain.
Descriptors: Epistemology, Trust (Psychology), Child Development, Reliability, Elementary School Students, Grade 4, Grade 5, Comparative Analysis, Accuracy, Cognitive Processes, Misconceptions, Mathematics, Learning Processes, Interpersonal Relationship, Mathematical Concepts
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education; Grade 4; Intermediate Grades; Grade 5; Middle Schools
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: National Science Foundation (NSF)
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: DRL1149116
Author Affiliations: N/A