THE DEVELOPMENT OF EPISTEMOLOGICAL THEORIES - BELIEFS ABOUT KNOWLEDGEAND KNOWING AND THEIR RELATION TO LEARNING

There have been a number of research programs that have investigated s tudents' thinking and beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowin g, including definitions of knowledge, how knowledge is constructed, a nd how knowledge is evaluated. However, these different research progr ams have pursued varying definitions and conceptual frameworks and use d quite different methodologies to examine students' epistemological b eliefs and thinking. In the first section of this article, we provide a critical and comprehensive review of these different research progra ms. In the second part of this article, we identify nine crucial theor etical and methodological issues that need to be resolved in future re search on epistemological theories. As these issues are addressed in f uture research, there will be more consensus regarding the nature of e pistemological theories, and their relation to cognition, motivation, and learning will be made more explicit.