Epistemological sensitisation causes deeper elaboration during self-regulated learning

Previous research indicates that students’ adaptation to task complexity in the planning stages of self-regulated learning are related to their epistemological beliefs (Stahl, Pieschl, & Bromme, 2006), but it is an open issue if students enact similar strategies in subsequent stages. Based on the COPES-model (Winne & Hadwin, 1998) the impact of epistemological beliefs on learning is tested here experimentally. In this study, students (21 humanities students, 14 biology students) had to solve five tasks of different complexity (Anderson et al., 2001) with a hypertext on “genetic fingerprinting”. Results indicate that students adapted their concurrent thoughts and concurrent actions to task complexity in this enactment stage. An epistemological sensitisation was administered that elicited more “sophisticated” beliefs and caused more elaborate learning processes. For example, students with this sensitisation employed more metacognitive planning, especially for more complex tasks. Additionally, effects of prior domain knowledge were investigated. Introduction Epistemological Beliefs and Learning Research on epistemological beliefs, i.e. learners' beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowing, has expanded considerably in recent years (see, for overviews, Buehl & Alexander, 2001; Hofer & Pintrich, 1997). One important theoretical assumption in this field of research is that learners’ epistemological beliefs develop from more “naive” views (knowledge is absolute; knowledge is an accumulation of facts) to more “sophisticated” beliefs (knowledge is relative and contextual, knowledge is a complex network). Additionally, an increasing number of empirical studies shows that such sophisticated beliefs are related to more adequate learning strategies and better learning outcomes. To give some examples from traditional classrooms: College students' epistemological beliefs were related to their processing of information and their monitoring of comprehension (Schommer, 1990), their academic performance (Schommer, 1993), conceptual change (Mason & Boscolo, 2004), and further cognitive processes during learning (Kardash & Howell, 2000). There are fewer studies concerning computer-based learning environments, but their results are encouraging as well. Concerning learning with hypertext, Jacobson and Spiro (1995) found that learners with more sophisticated epistemological beliefs were more able to learn and apply their knowledge after using a hypertext system than students with simpler epistemological beliefs. Bendixen and Hartley (2003) also found that epistemological beliefs are associated with learning outcomes in learning with hypertexts. And Bartholomé, Stahl, Pieschl, and Bromme (2006) found that students with more sophisticated beliefs showed a more adequate help-seeking behavior within an interactive learning environment. There is also evidence that epistemological beliefs are related to students’ information retrieval from the Internet (Hofer, 2004). Despite these positive empirical results some open issues remain: First, the exact relation between epistemological beliefs and learning is still unclear on a theoretical level. Some researchers assume that epistemological beliefs are somehow part of metacognitions (Hofer, 2004; Kitchener, 1983; Kuhn, 2000). However, their models do not specify the functional relationship between epistemological beliefs and learning in detail. Second, most empirical results concerning this relationship are correlative in nature. Thus, it is unclear if sophisticated beliefs cause better learning or if students with better learning strategies automatically develop more sophisticated beliefs. In order to determine causality, experimental studies are needed that test interventions changing students’ epistemological beliefs. COPES-Model of Self-Regulated Learning The COPES-model (Winne & Hadwin, 1998) provides an encouraging theoretical background that helps to specify a functional relationship, assumes causality, and incorporates epistemological beliefs as an important condition for the whole learning process. This model is well established in recent research (Greene & Azevedo, 2007). According to this model, self-regulated learning occurs in four weakly sequenced and recursive stages: (1) task definition, (2) goal setting and planning, (3) enactment and (4) adaptation. In the task definition stage (1), a student generates her own perception about what the studying task is (about constraints and resources). Based on this definition the student generates idiosyncratic goal(s) and constructs a plan for addressing that study task (2). In the enactment stage (3) the previously created plan of study tactics is carried out. The optional adaptation stage (4) pertains to fine-tuning of strategies within the actual learning task as well as to long-term adaptations based on the study experience. All four stages are embedded in the same general cognitive architecture that can be described by five constituents whose acronym gave the model its name: conditions (C), operations (O), products (P), evaluations (E) and standards (S). Conditions pertain to external task conditions (e.g., task complexity) as well as to internal cognitive conditions (e.g., prior domain knowledge, epistemological beliefs). Conditions influence the whole learning process, especially the operations and standards. Operations include all cognitive processes (e.g., tactics, strategies) that learners utilize to solve a learning task. In each learning stage, these operations create products (e.g., an essay). Students’ goals are represented as multivariate profile of standards. Standards can be described as a profile of different criteria that a students sets for the learning task. Evaluations occur during the whole learning process when a student metacognitively monitors her learning process. These evaluations are based on comparisons between the intermediate products on the one hand and her standards on the other. When she notices discrepancies she is able to perform metacognitive control by executing fix-up operations. Based on the COPES-model we hypothesize that epistemological beliefs as well as prior domain knowledge influence all stages of self-regulated learning within a hypermedia learning system, especially students’ adaptation to external conditions like task complexity. Epistemological beliefs and prior domain knowledge were selected because of their crucial importance for learning as indicated by the COPES-model. We explicitly focused on students' adaptation to task complexity as an approach to scrutinize affordances of learning, especially those given by the content. To illustrate this for epistemological beliefs imagine a learner with a "naïve" belief that knowledge is simple and stable. As epistemological beliefs directly influence the standards, the learner might probably set quite superficial goals (“The goal is achieved if I can recall all important facts.”) compared to a more "sophisticated" learner who believes that knowledge is complex and relative. Epistemological beliefs also directly influence the operations, thus a more "naïve" learner might enact rather superficial operations like memorizing compared to a more "sophisticated" learner who might enact strategies of deeper elaboration. These differences might be negligible for very simple tasks because learners enact similar strategies but might become more pronounced for complex tasks. Consequently, we hypothesize, that learners with more "sophisticated" beliefs should be better in calibrating to task complexity. Within series of coordinated studies we have already tested this hypothesis for the preparatory stages of learning (i.e., task definition, goal setting and planning) and found positive effects (Stahl, Pieschl, & Bromme, 2006). However, because students frequently don’t do what they say they do, for example indicated by the lack of congruence between self-report questionnaires and online measurements of self-regulated learning strategies (JamiesonNoel & Winne, 2003), it could not be taken for granted that students would execute their plans in real learning scenarios as indicated by their goal setting and planning. Thus, it is an open issue if similar effects can be detected in the enactment and adaptation stages. Therefore, the same research questions will be investigated in these stages: (1) Do learners adapt their learning process to task complexity? (2) Are these adaptation processes impacted by epistemological beliefs and prior domain knowledge? And (3) does adaptation impact the learning outcome?