Defining Epistemic Agency: Perspectives from Epistemology and Educational Psychology

Abstract

This paper explores the concept of epistemic agency in educational contexts, seeking aconceptual understanding of epistemic agency within the field of educational psychology that accounts for the many complex manifestations of epistemic agency that we see out of students and teachers in the classroom—both desirable and undesirable. This study consisted of a series of focus groups with epistemologists, educational psychologists, and a cross disciplinary focus group consisting of both epistemologists and educational psychologists. Additionally, this study involved individual semistructured interviews probing the evolution of the participants’ conceptions of epistemic agency and related scholarship over the course of the study timeline. Data was analyzed through thematic analysis and yielded insights about 1) the interactional, social, and ecological nature of epistemic agency, 2) the need for a model of epistemic agency that is inclusive of the many messy manifestations of epistemic agency, 3) the need for a model of epistemic agency that is inclusive of both a descriptive and normative accounting of epistemic agency, 4) the need for a characterization of epistemic agency as a complex system rather than a construct. Overall, this study calls out the importance of a full and inclusive understanding of the complexity of epistemic agency and epistemic contexts in the classroom at a time when teachers and students are grappling with epistemic ecosystems that are rapidly changing alongside the development of generative and agentic artificial intelligence technologies.