Mature students in higher education: Academic performance and intellectual ability

Mature students are sometimes said to be deficient in the basic skills needed for effective studying in higher education or to be impaired by age-related intellectual deficits. However, the research literature on the academic performance of mature students contains no good evidence that mature students perform any less well than younger students on courses of study in higher education. Moreover, the idea that normal ageing impairs the capacity for learning in higher education is most questionable: even the oldest mature students can obtain good results when assessed by means of both examinations and coursework

Social epistemic cognition in online interactions

Social media and online social networks dramatically change the way in which knowledge is acquired and disseminated. How do we re-understand about human knowledge and knowing? This work aims at extending the current understanding of human epistemic cognition in online social environments, where epistemic cognition refers to cognitions and cognitive processes related to epistemic matters such as knowledge and beliefs justification. We approach our inquiry with mixed methods: (1) quantitative study to test whether epistemic cognition might differ in individual and social contexts, and whether online interactions might mediate the later; and (2) social cognitive task analysis with interviews to manifest the intricate interplay of dynamics between social epistemic cognition and online interactions. We introduce the new construct of social epistemic cognition and contribute to the field of HCI with an evolved theory which states that epistemic cognition can be promoted in online social environments as mediated by online interactions