Metacognition and Reflection by Interdisciplinary Experts: Insights from Cognitive Science and Philosophy

Interdisciplinary understanding requires integration of insights from different perspectives, yet it appears questionable whether disciplinary experts are well prepared for this. Indeed, psychological and cognitive scientific studies suggest that expertise can be disadvantageous because experts are often more biased than non-experts, for example, or fixed on certain approaches, and less flexible in novel situations or situations outside their domain of expertise. An explanation is that experts’ conscious and unconscious cognition and behavior depend upon their learning and acquisition of a set of mental representations or knowledge structures. Compared to beginners in a field, experts have assembled a much larger set of representations that are also more complex, facilitating fast and adequate perception in responding to relevant situations. This article argues how metacognition should be employed in order to mitigate such disadvantages of expertise: By metacognitively monitoring and regulating their own cognitive processes and representations, experts can prepare themselves for interdisciplinary understanding. Interdisciplinary collaboration is further facilitated by team metacognition about the team, tasks, process, goals, and representations developed in the team. Drawing attention to the need for metacognition, the article explains how philosophical reflection on the assumptions involved in different disciplinary perspectives must also be considered in a process complementary to metacognition and not completely overlapping with it. (Disciplinary assumptions are here understood as determining and constraining how the complex mental representations of experts are chunked and structured.) The article concludes with a brief reflection on how the process of Reflective Equilibrium should be added to the processes of metacognition and philosophical reflection in order for experts involved in interdisciplinary collaboration to reach a justifiable and coherent form of interdisciplinary integration. An Appendix of “Prompts or Questions for Metacognition” that can elicit metacognitive knowledge, monitoring, or regulation in individuals or teams is included at the end of the article

Gender, Narratives and Intersectionality: can Personal Experience Approaches to Research Contribute to “Undoing Gender”?

This paper examines the use of narrative methodologies as one approach to exploring issues of gender, education and social justice and particularly insights into ‘undoing gender’. Drawing on feminist beliefs in the significance of experiential evidence, the paper examines the possibilities of exploring gender and its multiple intersections in a range of global and policy contexts through the use of personal experience approaches. The ‘storying’ of lived experience is examined as a means of challenging dominant discourses which can construct and other individuals and groups in relation to many aspects of gender and education. Drawing on intersectionality, as an ambiguous, complex and developing feminist theory, the paper considers ways in which narrative can illuminate often hidden complexities while seeking to avoid simplistic generalisations and essentialisms. The difficulties of using narrative in relation to these aims are explored being mindful of the warnings of feminist writers such as Michele Fine and bel hooks. The paper briefly considers narrative as both methodology and phenomenon, and finally, drawing on critical discourse analysis, discusses the potential of intersectionality and narrative in relation to undoing gender

Public Trust in Science: Exploring the Idiosyncrasy-Free Ideal

What makes science trustworthy to the public? This chapter examines one proposed answer: the trustworthiness of science is based at least in part on its independence from the idiosyncratic values, interests, and ideas of individual scientists. That is, science is trustworthy to the extent that following the scientific process would result in the same conclusions, regardless of the particular scientists involved. We analyze this "idiosyncrasy-free ideal" for science by looking at philosophical debates about inductive risk, focusing on two recent proposals which offer different methods of avoiding idiosyncrasy: the high epistemic standards proposal and the democratic values proposal

Online discussion compensates for suboptimal timing of supportive information presentation in a digitally supported learning environment

This study used a sequential set-up to investigate the consecutive effects of timing of supportive information presentation (information before vs. information during the learning task clusters) in interactive digital learning materials (IDLMs) and type of collaboration (personal discussion vs. online discussion) in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) on student knowledge construction. Students (N = 87) were first randomly assigned to the two information presentation conditions to work individually on a case-based assignment in IDLM. Students who received information during learning task clusters tended to show better results on knowledge construction than those who received information only before each cluster. The students within the two separate information presentation conditions were then randomly assigned to pairs to discuss the outcomes of their assignments under either the personal discussion or online discussion condition in CSCL. When supportive information had been presented before each learning task cluster, online discussion led to better results than personal discussion. When supportive information had been presented during the learning task clusters, however, the online and personal discussion conditions had no differential effect on knowledge construction. Online discussion in CSCL appeared to compensate for suboptimal timing of presentation of supportive information before the learning task clusters in IDLM

Sport events and representational capital: investigating industry collaboration in Rugby World Cup 2015 planning

A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of a Doctor of PhilosophyThis research study investigated intangible assets generated by sport event hosting, specifically in relation to those industries that could influence the planning and leveraging of this alternate value source at Rugby World Cup (RWC) 2015 host destinations. The industries under scrutiny were sport, public sector and tourism, and the sampled host destinations were Cardiff, Exeter, Brighton and Gloucester. The objectives of this thesis were threefold: (1) to respond to the lack of knowledge around the collaborative roles of sport, public sector and tourism organisations in sport event planning, (2) to pioneer representational capital, a concept that looks to examine the input of those pinpointed planners in the identification and valuation of intangible opportunities generated by hosting RWC 2015 fixtures, (3) to probe planning discourse for examples of leveraging representational capital. Expert opinions were captured from executive-level RWC 2015 planners, and supported by secondary data analysis. The findings showed that public sector and sport organisation planning representatives were key RWC 2015 planners and that tourism planners, at a destination level, were not key collaborators in central planning forums, but collaborated extensively with national and international tourism organisations on RWC 2015 planning matters. Additionally, the analysis uncovered that representational capital was predominantly made-up of three key intangible asset areas: destination image, exposure and reputation. Indeed, these intangible areas were recognised and valued by all three industries, but the data analysis indicated that the levels of collaboration between the sampled planning industries did not translate into collectively leveraging representational capital. Moreover, one of the main breakthroughs from this investigation was identifying the interconnected nature of a range of intangible assets in generating greater value, i.e. increasing representational capital available to planners. Representational capital was found to have a strong connection throughout the leveraging process, in terms of the maximisation strategy and planned outputs in RWC 2015 planning, further supporting the study project objective of investigating the intangible in relation to sport events

Mapping Identity Prejudice: Locations of Epistemic Injustice in Philosophy for/with Children

This article aims to map the locations of identity prejudice that occurs in the context of a Community of Inquiry. My claim is that epistemic injustice, which usually originates from seemingly ‘minor’ cases of identity prejudice, can potentially leak into the actual practice of P4wC. Drawing from Fricker, the various forms of epistemic injustice are made explicit when epistemic practices are framed within concrete social circumstances where power, privilege and authority intersect, which is observable in school settings. In connection, despite the pedagogical improvements P4wC offers, some forms of identity prejudice prevalent in traditional classrooms may persist, affecting children who are identified with negatively stereotyped social groups. It is, therefore, important to pay attention to the reality of epistemic injustice and the possible locations where it may potentially surface in the COI. Drawing from my P4wC experience, I show that identity prejudice stems from the intersections of the roles and positionalities of the participants in a philosophical dialogue. These intersections point towards the epistemic relationships of the P4wC teacher, the students, and the P4wC program itself. I conclude that identity prejudice arises circumstantially and/or substantively in P4wC scholarship and practice