Laird R. O. Edman
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Developmental Theories
Perry (1970) pioneered the developmental approach and constructed his influential
scheme of epistemological development through questionnaires and interviews with
Harvard undergraduates in the 1950s and 1960s. Perry asserted that undergraduate stu-
dents’ personal epistemology could be classified along a continuum of four stages or clus-
ters which could be further subdivided into nine sequential phases. Students in the more
naïve stages view knowledge as concrete, absolute, and handed down from authorities
(e.g., “We know the universe is 13.7 billion years old because experts say so, and learning
means memorizing what the experts say”), whereas students in the more developed stages
view knowledge claims as tentative and in need of justification (e.g., “The current state
of evidence in several fields indicates the universe is about 13.7 billion years old, but
new evidence might be found to challenge that theory. We should accept whatever the best
evidence says for now”). This important early theory of epistemological development has
been revised and developed by a number of researchers using different methods with dif-
ferent populations (Baxter Magolda, 1992; Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986;
Kuhn, 1999; Kuhn & Weinstock, 2002). While these other theories have important dif-
ferences in approach, definitions of epistemology, and conclusions, the fundamental out-
line of Perry’s work remains within all of the subsequent epistemological development
theories (Hofer & Pintrich, 1997).
Reflective Thinking Model
The most thoroughly researched and perhaps most rigorously empirical developmental
theory of personal epistemology is that of King and Kitchener (1994, 2002, 2004). King
and Kitchener’s reflective judgment model focuses on justification for belief as the key
component to discerning someone’s epistemological stance. In this approach, students’
epistemological development is best understood through their explanations for their
answers to difficult issues rather than the actual content of their answers—examining why
they believe what they believe, rather than examining what they believe.
King and Kitchener have developed and tested their model using their Reflective
Judgment Interview, an hour-long interview through which they observe participants’
answers and justifications for their answers to ill-structured problems (problems which
cannot be defined with a high degree of completeness nor solved with certainty, e.g.,
“How can we reconcile conflicting accounts of the origin and diversity of species on the
planet?”). The protocols of over 8,000 participants over 25 years in dozens of studies
across ages, gender, educational levels, backgrounds, and ethnicities have revealed strong
evidence for striking differences in people’s underlying assumptions about knowledge, dif-
ferences that are related to how people make and justify their judgments and which change
in a developmental sequence that is related to both age and education (King & Kitchener,
2002, 2004).
Prereflective thinking. King and Kitchener (1994) identified seven stages of reflective
thinking organized into three different levels. Stages 1–3, called prereflective thinking,