Individual Differences in Epistemic Beliefs and Text Comprehension: Assumptions, Trends, and Future Challenges

Objectives: Our objectives are to present conceptualizations of the comprehension of single and multiple texts that address the role of epistemic beliefs in text comprehension, review supporting evidence for such conceptualizations, and note particular trends and future challenges for this area of research. Frameworks: Conceptualizations of the comprehension of single and multiple texts increasingly address the role of readers' epistemic beliefs, that is, their beliefs about knowledge and the process of knowing (Hofer & Bendixen, 2012). For example, Alexander (2012) posited that competent readers are more likely to believe that knowledge is contextualized and complex and to realize that textual claims need to be justified by considering the credentials of authors as well as the evidence they provide. Likewise, Afflerbach and colleagues (2013) argued that epistemic beliefs influence the cognitive skills and strategies that students use and the stances they take toward text, highlighting the importance of epistemic beliefs for facilitating or constraining the use of critical thinking strategies in reading to evaluate text content as well as source credibility. Moreover, Bråten et al. (2011) specified how epistemic beliefs may influence multiple-text comprehension by facilitating or constraining an integrated understanding of content across texts as well as the construction of links between sources and content and between sources. Mode of inquiry: We reviewed research on epistemic beliefs and text comprehension conducted since Schommer's (1990) seminal paper, which pioneered quantitative analysis of this relationship. Results: Research on single-text comprehension generally indicates that beliefs in tentative rather than certain knowledge, as well as in complex rather than simple knowledge, are related to more adaptive text processing and better comprehension. Moreover, in the complex reading-task context of multiple-text comprehension, viewing knowledge as tentative rather than certain, complex rather than simple, originating in expert authors rather than the reader, and justified by rules of inquiry and cross-checking of knowledge sources rather than own opinion and experience has been shown to predict students' abilities to synthesize information from expository texts expressing diverse and even contradictory viewpoints. General trends discovered in our review include increased emphasis on contextualization, complexity, and justification. Finally, salient future challenges concern the need to clarify how epistemic beliefs interact with other relevant individual difference variables, the extent to which relationships between epistemic beliefs and text comprehension are bidirectional rather than unidirectional, and how effective and efficient interventions to promote productive change in epistemic beliefs can be designed and implemented. Conclusions and Implications: The merging of epistemic belief and text comprehension research provides new understanding of what it takes to be a competent, critical reader in the 21st century. Instruction in classrooms to facilitate the development of adaptive epistemic beliefs, as well as text comprehension, is a task not only for reading teachers, however. It is equally pertinent that future research provides teachers with a solid grounding for addressing and challenging students' beliefs about knowledge and knowing as part of their subject matter teaching.