The Relationships between Students’ Epistemological Beliefs and Social Interactions and Epistemic Actions in Collaborative Inquiry Practice

Abstract

Students' epistemological belief about how ideas develop is crucial as it helps them better understand how they construct knowledge in collaborative learning. This study investigated how primary students' epistemological beliefs relate to collaborative inquiry activities in an online knowledge-building environment using data analytics approaches. Findings based on social network analysis and epistemic network analysis on students' online discourse suggested that students' epistemological beliefs influenced their knowledge-building activities. Students with higher-level epistemological beliefs engaged more in productive and effective community inquiry activities; they are more active in reading others' ideas and proposing diverse ideas for idea improvement in a collaborative community. The study contributes to understanding students' views on the nature of knowledge building and the influences on students' social interactions and epistemic actions in collaborative inquiry online environments.