Exploring Students’ Perceptions of the Epistemic Demands of Complex Issues and Exhibited Critical-Analytic Thinking in an In-Class Multiple Source Use Project

The overarching goal of the present study was to explore relations between students’ perceptions regarding the epistemic demands of complex issues, and their exhibited critical-analytic thinking in the context of an ecologically-valid MSU study. Students’ flexibility in perceptions of varyingly complex issues was indicative of their epistemic competence, or their awareness of situated epistemic demands. To unearth these perceptions, we created the novel Perceptions of Epistemic Demands (PED) Task. K-means cluster analysis using students’ responses returned six theoretically defensible profiles that were hypothesized to differentially predict students’ critical-analytic thinking exhibited in argumentative essays. However, no significant differences were found. To explore possible reasons for this finding, students’ essay topic selection was linked to their perception of that topic on the PED Task. That analysis indicated that students chose a claim that they perceived as most self-relevant, familiar, and controversial. Students’ guided reflections corroborated those reasons but also revealed that most opted for an issue that they thought was easy to find sources for and defend in the essay. Most students also explained that they had assumed a position regarding the issue they chose prior to text access, with only a few students voicing the goal to remain open to persuasion by sources. Taken together, this suggested that students largely operated under (non-)epistemic goals that did not prioritize knowledge generation or belief formation but rather focused on task completion. Students’ task goals likely clouded the relation between their espoused perceptions and demonstrated critical-analytic thinking. Consequently, in future research and education, we call to focus expressly on epistemic education, practice with sourcing and MSU, and teaching the mechanisms and importance of quality argumentation writing in higher education contexts to promote critical-analytic thinking.