Personal Epistemology
August 17, 2007 by liping
OK, today is one of those days when I understand why “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”. I feel my post-graduate study is a process of ebbs and flows — “I know something” … ” I don’t really know anything”.
Personal epistemology is a new term I picked up today. It refers to beliefs about knowledge and knowing. I know students’ perception of what knowledge is and how to learn have huge impact on their actually learning. For example, for those students who don’t regard peers as the important source of knowledge, the incentive for collaborative learning might be low.
I just didn’t realize there is a lot of research focusing on this connection between personal epistemology and learning. Hofer BK, Schraw G and Hammer D seem to have quite some publication in this respect. In addition to the general perception on knowledge, there are also discipline-specific epistemology.
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is it similar to Huang Yao’s people knowledge?
I think they are not the same. Personal epistemology is more about personal perception concerning knowledge and learning.
Actually I was thinking about the educational use of social network website like Facebook the other day and it hit me that it could be related to Huang Yao’s people knowledge. From Facebook, students can get better idea of where the teacher come from.