Fully Apt Epistemic Performance, Epistemic Cognition, and Transfer Across Academic Disciplines: PhDs, Pedagogy, and Processes

The ability to effectively determine trustworthy and accurate information is essential in the complex digital environment of the modern world. Apt epistemic performance, the competence required for individuals to reach epistemic aims (Barzilai & Chinn, 2018), is essential to successfully navigating today’s complex information environment. However, research indicates that apt epistemic performance is both uncommon and discipline-specific. There is also renewed interest, from scholars and others, into questions about if and how knowledge, skills, and practices transfer from one academic discipline to another. Numerous theories have emerged to capture transfer. Notably, these include traditional cognitive theories and more recent conceptualizations such as the actor-oriented theory of transfer. More research is needed into whether and how apt epistemic performance transfers in order to better prepare students to navigate the complex digital world of today. I investigated the transfer of apt epistemic performance with data captured using think-aloud protocol. The data was gathered as experts from education (i.e., no-transfer), other social sciences (i.e., near-transfer), and natural sciences (i.e., far-transfer) reviewed four publications and answered questions about a complex problem in education. Specifically, nine participants, three representing each group (i.e., no-transfer/educators; near-transfer/other social scientists; and far-transfer/natural scientists), evaluated research evidence about the efficacy of flipped classroom pedagogy and made recommendations to a hypothetical colleague about whether or not to utilize a flipped classroom. My findings indicated that experts, from both the near- and far-transfer groups, were able to positively transfer the apt epistemic performance they developed in their own disciplines to answer complex education questions. However, with respect to two topics, conclusions reached and source evaluation, there were distinct differences in the complexity demonstrated by in-domain (i.e., no-transfer/education) experts when compared to members of the transfer groups. Likewise, negative transfer, or the transfer of knowledge and skills that hinder thinking in a different domain, was demonstrated by members of the far-transfer group as they worked with qualitative data. I found value in the aspects of apt epistemic performance, as defined by Barzilai and Chinn (2018), and both actor-oriented and cognitive theories of transfer, as tools to understand the transfer of epistemic performance across domains. My findings have implications for the study of epistemic cognition and transfer.Doctor of Philosoph