Abstract

Abstract People entertain varying beliefs about the nature of knowledge, often called personal epistemologies or epistemic cognition. During this “post-truth era”, epistemic thinking is increasingly relevant: how people justify and evaluate their own beliefs. They experience epistemic emotions related to knowledge (hot cognitions). Mental models are related to epistemologies, because they implicitly include how people come to know something. For instance, students’ epistemic cognition has bearing on what kinds of study strategies they prefer. Our research shows that epistemic beliefs play a role in how people learn. We identified epistemic profiles that were domain-specific and related to mental models of learning.

Bio Kirsti Lonka is Professor of Educational Psychology at University of Helsinki, Finland (2005-). She is the Director of the Research Group of Educational Psychology. On wiredminds.fi you may see all her projects and also people working with her. Kirsti Lonka is also Extraordinary Professor, Optentia Research Focus Area, North-West University, Vanderbiljpark, South Africa (2016-2019) http://news.nwu.ac.za/prof-kirsti-lonka-trailing-digital-native-within-educational-context and Advisory Board Member of Graduate Institute of Digital Learning and Education, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (2015-). Kirsti is a founding member of Teachers’ Academy of the University of Helsinki since 2013 and she was also their first President (2013-2014).