Ccontemporary Epistemological Research in Education Essay

ABSTRACT. In this oblige the authors ch wholeenge rulern-day epistemic olf comeory modality deep d consume statemental settings. afterwards a reconciliation of the current models which continue epistemic beliefs as static and mechanical, the authors devote a principle companionship to adorn their enactivist view that epistemic beliefs should be conceptualized as fluid and dynamic constructs, emerging in tissue-like configurations. Answers to epistemic drumheads unfold at tit the interstices and vulgar inter operations surrounded by throng and their milieu.Boundaries amongst savantt apieceer, psychecommunity, cognitionbodily experience atomic number 18 becoming blurred. From this enactivist scene the police detectives role changes considerably. Instead of de full terminationine teachers soulfulnessal traits and epistemic make-up, the interrogati wizardr should modify teachers to the subtle ways epistemic beliefs atomic number 18 enmeshed in spite of appearance their day-to-day headmaster lives, focusing on the analyzable model of the article of belief practice. KEY WORDS present-day(a) epistemic harmonisek, education, enactivism, lived experiences, personal epistemology.We rehearse reading, b arly perform intend. Information is like the web of links in a fit fence Meaning is like the sleep with d witness of waves on a mountain stream. slack Crego (2002) 2002 evidence-poems. com surmisal & PSYCHOLOGY Copyright 2008 discerning Publications. VOL. 18(1) 2745 DOI 10. 1177/0959354307086921 http//tap. sagepub. com D makeloaded from http//tap. sagepub. com at Universiteit Maastricht on tremendous 6, 2008 2008 shrewd Publications. each rights reserved. non for m sensationymaking(prenominal) usance or illegitimate distri furtherion. 28. possible action & PSYCHOLOGY 18(1) What is the accredited temperament of beledge, and how does a person keep down to admit? These app arnt movements premier became subject of psychological investigation in the late mid-sixties by means of the seminal plow of Perry (1968). Today, these questions be studied under the umbrella of query on personal epistemology (Hofer & Pintrich, 2002). Personal epistemology has father to be seen as the popular denominator for search d sensation in spite of appearance this field and as a term signifying idiosyncratic conceptions of goledge and cognize.These conceptions be referred to by m any(prenominal) disparate labels, of which the most comm more(prenominal)over purposed term is epistemic belief. Other labels ar epistemic posture, epistemic resource, and ways of wise(p) (Niessen, Vermunt, Abma, Widdershoven, & van der Vleuten, 2004). Beca engross the term (epistemic) belief is already to a greater extent broadly utilize at heart (educational) psychology and thereof easy to boyfriend with, we exit affair this term end-to-end the article when referring to issues of noesis and fucking .Within this article we stick out a cognitive psychological and an enactivist account of epistemic beliefs and introduce that the differences surrounded by both be ultimately reflected in Cregos distinction between the rehearsing of instruction and performing of meaning. We will apply the enactivist side to an consultation segment to en satisfactory deeper instinct of teaching practice. The finish of the enactivist account to this courtship has the character of a hermeneutic circle. This authority that the enactivist account provides us with a desktop view that enables us to understand teachers experiences more fully.At the same magazine, the march of application is in addition a practice of possibility up and creation caught by rising insights while cons align. These insights might alter our epistemological locating. This study is part of a big ongoing investigation to understand the phenomenon of immunity by teachers to a Problem-Based Learning (PBL) enviro nment using the epistemological place as our interpretive fabric. PBL, in short, is an informional rule that, contrary to frontal teaching, chooses non to instruct savants directly, precisely to facilitate the offshoot in which students themselves and in collaboration with each sunrise(prenominal)(prenominal)wise shoot the necessary knowledge and skills by good on genuine-life problems.The role of the teacher is paramount to the success of this method. This is why the eccentric use through start this article highlights a teacher (Josie) who is situated at heart a PBL course. In the sideline we will first present the fragment acknowledgen from the interview with Josie. In this fragment she talks more or less her struggle to introduce a multitudeing of new staff members to ProblemBased Learning.We will as well as provide a more in-depth linguistic, methodological, and ontological characterization to contemporary epistemological look for. last the contours of t he enactivist perspective will be force in more detail. Josies parapraxis Interviewer (I) How would you describe your ego as a flight simulator? Josie (J) I always try to postulate the radical excited ratiocinati exclusively PBL. Downloaded from http//tap. sagepub. com at Universiteit Maastricht on heroic 6, 2008 2008 able Publications. completely rights reserved. Not for commercialized use or unauthorized distri bution.NIESSEN ET AL. epistemological seek IN program line 29 I How do you do that? J By unstated to get everybody involved. At the same time, this is a potential pitfall. For eccentric, in a cooking session last week at that place was a mathematical conferenceing of student tutors and this stem was really very critical, because they had at leaned other PBL courses. That was when I found myself trying to shit more organizethats where I felt inadequate, because thither were so many people with so much experience. In these instances its eventful to of fer students guidelines and structure.You should be able to deviate from this structurebut only in those cases when its possible. approximately teachers see this very spend a pennyly. Personally, I tend to wee structure in concert with the stemon the spot. With some assemblages this massages out just fine and with other throngs it would pick up been better if I had provided a clear structure from the start. We would assimilate incur further. I Students get restless? J No, yes, well, thithers too much introduce and too few conclusions. I consider thats a major occasion in PBLits a major issue that too often, whitethornbe, no developed conclusion is reached.Thats really what I gauge is probably my own shortcoming, some topic that as a student I design was missing in the system. That structurethe framework in which you work. I What does this framework look likewhat is it made of? Do you know what I mean? J A connecting divagate. I You say that on the angiotensin co nverting enzymeness and only(a) hand youre trying to summon this sop up and you want to connect it with the experiences of the participantsbut thats surd because their experiences are so diverse and a unwashed understructure is hard to discern.J Well, whitethornbe thats because thither just isnt one maven thread and because PBL is based on the self-reliance that the available knowledge is relative. So you croup non say thithers one single solution to a peculiar(prenominal) problem. The burning(prenominal) occasion is that you are working towards a solution. Josie (a pseudonym) is a junior teacher flight simulator at the Faculty of economic knowledge and Business Administration. She was one out of a convocation of 10 teacher flight simulators and 9 new staff members of Maastricht University in the Netherlands who were interviewed some their experiences with PBL, their concerns and unresolved issues.The participants we interviewed came from contrary departments of Maa stricht University and differed considerably in experience with PBL, universal attitude towards teaching, general teaching experience, and opinion progressive the esteem of PBL for student schooling. Despite the attach differences in cover chargeground and experience among the interviewees, Josie was not the only one who presented a complex and multilayered experience. looking at at other participants day-to-day teaching experiences, we similarly encountered varied and multilayered stories. This phenomenon is neither grotesque nor new.Studies by Perry (1968) and Lyons (1990), but in addition more youngly from Phillion and Connelly (2004), show us that when investigators one shot their attention to actual teaching experiences, the presented picture of teaching and epistemological beliefs is more textured and complex. The Downloaded from http//tap. sagepub. com at Universiteit Maastricht on August 6, 2008 2008 shrewd Publications. any rights reserved. Not for commercia l use or unauthorized distribution. 30 speculation & PSYCHOLOGY 18(1) selection of this particular segment has been guided by the potential to learn from it about(predicate) the role of epistemological beliefs in teaching. match to Stake (1994), the potential for cultivation is a diverse and sometimes master criterion to representativeness (p. 243). The fragment shows how Josie is struggling with the question How do these students total to know? In the interview, Josie as a teacher trainer talks about her ideas and perfects of student inter-group communication within her courses. She says that in some state of affairss she finds it difficult to realize these ideals. She refers to her attempts to structure group sessions. She thinks that in order to do so, she has to develop a connecting thread that will enable the group to achieve a horse reason of closure.This illustration nicely illustrates Josies history cuddle to teaching. Her goal is to develop, together with th e group, a storyline with a beginning, middle, and an ending. She expects that this jointly developed secret plan will enable the group to close the session in a able way. Josies ideas and strategy implicitly think of her epistemological appeal to one of the come upon questions in epistemology How does a person come to know? , or How should this group of students come to know? We foundation see an dress emerging from the confrontation between her ideals, her self-image, and the group with its distinctives.When she says Its in these instances that its important to offer students guidelines and structure, she refers to her failed attempt to provide guidance, which, to her, was necessary to give the group a satisfactory sense of closure. This experience appears to ache triggered a slight change in her epistemological outlook. Instead of her a earlieri assumption that students should be regarded as knowledgeable others, who will work together with the teacher to frame a comm on thread, she now thinks that the group process as well depends on her faculty accurately to estimate the amount of prior experience that students bring to the course and her own experience and skills.Josies rapport with the group of students is coloured by her ideals about student involvement. It is excessively with this particular group of students, who start out so much experience, that she discovers the stroke of her usual strategy, i. e. developing a structure on the spot together with the group. In her own words Their experiences are so diverse and a common constitution is hard to find. As a allow for she is confused and forced to re pass judgment her epistemological ideal of student involvement in light of the concrete short letter.Looking back on this experience, she reflects on the epistemological perspective underlying PBL and in doing so realizes that in that respect isnt just one single solution to a problem and that all knowledge can make a contribution. The lived experiences of Josie as a teacher are interpreted as an indication that the epistemological questions can only be meaningfully understood when they are placed within the context of the story that defines the feature as a whole.To put it in more general terms, in order to assess a situation epistemologically or Downloaded from http//tap.sagepub. com at Universiteit Maastricht on August 6, 2008 2008 keen-witted Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.NIESSEN ET AL. EPISTEMOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN EDUCATION 31 make sense of teachers experiences epistemologically, we need to take account of the parcel that constitute each new teaching situation. In Josies case these circumstances acceptd her conviction that a common thread had to be identified, her skills to get the group to do this, the group size and group members varied experience.We would assert that her epistemological belief is essentially indexical (Roth, Lawless, & Tobin, 2 000), meaning that it is prodigious only as seen from within the concrete circumstances in which it arises. In the spare-time activity segmentation we will focus on the contrast between this view of epistemological beliefs and the prevailing views in contemporary epistemological research. contemporary epistemological investigate Although the term contemporary epistemological research suggests that there is a unified research empyrean, there are in fact different movements to which researchers within the domain of personal epistemology may turn.These movements may be referred to as trait-oriented, possibility-minded, and resource-oriented. This instrument that researchers typify epistemological beliefs respectively as traits, theories, or resources (Hammer & Elby, 2002). Although we hold in with Hammer and Elby that there are some important differences among these movements, we also discern an important mutual property all are rooted in cognitive psychology. This seems to of fer an interesting perspective for an summary and characterization of the field as a whole, because it would go to the very heart of research on epistemological beliefs careless(predicate) of the particular movement.In our view, Cregos phrasal idiom rehearsal of breeding very capably captures the essence of contemporary epistemological research in relation to three coordinated angles language, methodology, and ontology. Linguistic Idiosyncrasies of modern Epistemological Research A striking linguistic trait of the cognitive psychological discourse about the foundations of sentiment and believing is a marked preference for the use of nouns (Saljo, 2002). Since contemporary epistemological research is grounded in cognitive psychology, this characteristic is also discernible in epistemological research.The phenomenon addressed within epistemological research can be denoted by different labels epistemological belief (Duell & Schommer-Aikins, 2001 Hofer, 2000 Hofer & Pintrich, 1 997, 2002 Schommer, 1994, 1998b), epistemological identify (Perry, 1968, 1988) epistemological theory (Hofer, 2000 Hofer & Pintrich, 1997, 2002), epistemological type Downloaded from http//tap. sagepub. com at Universiteit Maastricht on August 6, 2008 2008 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved.Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 32 THEORY & PSYCHOLOGY 18(1) (Ryan, 1984a, 1984b), epistemological resource (Hammer & Elby, 2002), epistemological style (Martin, Silva, Newman, & Thayer, 1994), epistemological reflection (Baxter Magolda, 1992, 1994, 1996), epistemological posture (Desaultes & Larochelle, 1997), epistemological orientation (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986), epistemological antecedent (Powell, 1996), and ways of knowing (Belenky et al. , 1986).The pitiful aspect of the predominance of nouns as the psychical synthesis blocks for thinking and believing is that it creates the impression that peoples capacities and ideas should be conceived of as abiding objects (Saljo, 2002). Nouns distract our attention from the processes in which epistemological constructs can be seen to emerge. Nouns denote a final state as unlike to a process in which actions and opinions are continuously taking shape and modifying each other. The idea of stability is reinforced by the tendency to represent epistemological beliefs as invariable cognitive traits or theories (Hammer & Elby, 2002).Epistemological beliefs are seen as trait-like or theory-like births which are stored and acted upon inside the brain. From an epistemological trait perspective, undivideds beliefs and ideas about epistemology tend to cohere into invariable positions or levels, phases or stages, which can be august from other levels and phases with regards to organization and role. They are seen as declarative knowledge to which a person has conscious and articulate access. In epistemological theories, beliefs are perceived as being structured in this way (Hofer & Pintrich, 1997, 2002). trance with the tendency to see epistemological beliefs as stable and object-like traits or theories stored within the individual mind, most researchers tend to refer to epistemological beliefs in terms of individuals having them (Pehkonen & Torner, 1999). Another feature within Western society that reinforces thinking about epistemological beliefs as objects and stable is the linguistic tendency to typify mental phenomena dichotomously, i. e. as belonging to eitheror categories (Amstutz, 1999 Davis & Sumara, 1997).Examples of such dichotomies are mentalphysical, inbredexternal, individualcollective (Davis & Sumara, 2001 Heft, 2001). Membership of one category precludes membership of the other one of the pair. This divisive either/or mode of thinking reinforces the image of people as unchanging. Something or someone is or is not of some category. According to Langer (1989, 1997), divisive thinking has this effect when people take categories or opposites l iterally or without mindful attention. She calls for advertent and critical thinking in which meaningless acceptance of categories is regarded as the opposite of correctly learning.We think that a contemporary description with a language that treats epistemological beliefs as stable and trait-like or object-like has trouble interpreting the epistemological picture that arises from teachers concrete perspectives. When we fail Josies account and realize that she tunes into the situation as a process that unfolds in interaction with the group, we realize Downloaded from http//tap. sagepub. com at Universiteit Maastricht on August 6, 2008 2008 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved.Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. NIESSEN ET AL. EPISTEMOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN EDUCATION 33 that the boundaries between individualcollective, selfother, and internalexternal are not clear-cut. They are fuzzy, blurred, and overlapping, and we see no clear outlined either/or distinctio ns. We think epistemological beliefs should be better conceived of as emerging characterizations within a process of mutual adaptation, such as in Josies attempts to tune in to the ideas of the group and to her own and reconcile them.Because this process unfolds simultaneously with the teaching process, it cannot be fully anticipate a priori or even as it is being enacted. To us, this view is compatible with a concept of epistemological beliefs as continuously unfolding processes, like waves cascading down a mountain stream. Just as the piss and the mountain are being shaped and reshaped in their continuous interaction, so is the coif to the epistemological question How do these students come to know? being rephrased under the work on of interaction in a concrete teaching situation. break upicularities Regarding the Methodology within a Contemporary Epistemological panorama Characterizing the methodologies that are used in contemporary epistemological research, we see an equa lly differentiated part of instruments production-type t arrive at a bun in the ovens, splay-ended interviews, vignettes, observations, illstructured problems, and Likert-type questionnaires (Duell & SchommerAikins, 2001). What is striking to us is that disrespect this diversity, epistemological beliefs research is exceptionally one(a) in its preference for using the individual and his or her beliefs, knowledge, desires, and attitudes as the unit of analysis (Lyons, 1990).We think this preference is congruent with the discernment for nouns emphasizing the object-oriented way of thinking it seems to us that an orientation towards epistemological beliefs as object-like has been (tacitly) operative in the development of instruments that are used to study them as personal and stable traits or theories. We notice that an orientation to the individual is especially recognizable in questionnaire (Likert-type) studies and standardise interview studies.Despite growing animadversion of questionnaire studies, they fork over been and continue to be an important method in studies of epistemological beliefs (Duell & Schommer-Aikins, 2001). Part of their popularity seems to be attributable to their easy and apace administration. Nevertheless, Hammer and Elby (2002) reveal a ingrained problem when they forefront out that breaker point formulation is often far take from day-today teaching practice while at the same time it is assumed to interest to these contexts (see, e. g., Schommer, 1998a questionnaire Nothing is certain but closing and taxes).According to Hammer and Elby, this is neither true nor Downloaded from http//tap. sagepub. com at Universiteit Maastricht on August 6, 2008 2008 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 34 THEORY & PSYCHOLOGY 18(1) viable when made explicit. close epistemological studies ask participants direct questions about their beliefs, often by presenting epistemological statem ents and inquire them to rate their agreement/disagreement on a Likert scale.For example, students may be asked whether they agree or disagree that the best thing about science courses is that most problems have one right issuing (Schommer, 1990, p. 499) the science principles in the textbooks will always be true (Songer & Linn, 1991, p. 769) or knowledge in physics consists of many pieces of information, each of which applies principally to a specific situation (Redish, Saul, & Steinberg, 1998, p. 217). It is only by a presumption of unitarity that the results of these studies may be considered to apply to all contexts of learning (Hammer & Elby, 2002).However, the item formulation must be generic wine to preserve internal congruousness throughout the whole study. It would be incongruent to perceive of epistemological beliefs as stable traits or theories but apply highly context-specific or dialogical research methods. A generic item formulation makes perfect sense given the a priori position that epistemological beliefs are stable phenomena. Epistemological beliefs are seen as tangible features and measured congruently.They can therefore be conceived of as entities that clashing on teaching behaviour linearly, i. e.cause exists as an inherent constituent of epistemological beliefs. Contemporary cognitive epistemological research is touch with the search for explanations of the epistemological perspective in order to predict and control students and teachers behaviour. victimization standardized (correlational) measuring techniques, researchers are able to identify these linear and law- rangeed patterns.The role of the researcher in this process is merely to set off these relationships objectively, with validity and reliability (Guba & Lincoln, 1989, 1994 Lincoln & Guba, 1985, 2000).In interpreting Josies segment, it is true that Josie shows an epistemological preference to create a common thread together. At the same time we also see that this prefe rence becomes active and is questioned while interacting with this specific group. Her experience of the situation she describes has led her to acknowledge that in this instancegiven her own and the groups experiencea different approach might have been more successful. Confronted with this new experience, a breach is made within otherwise customized behaviour.These breaches provide opportunities for change and rewrite of ideas to suit local circumstances. We interpret Josies ultimate handling of the situation as the result of reciprocal dynamics between different personal and situational elements, whose influence can be seen from a holistic point of view, but which cannot be reduced to any element or correlation in particular. Downloaded from http//tap. sagepub. com at Universiteit Maastricht on August 6, 2008 2008 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. NIESSEN ET AL. EPISTEMOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN EDUCATION.35 The Particularitie s Regarding the Ontology within a Contemporary Epistemological Interpretation Ontology is the share within metaphysics that deals with the nature of being. More concretely, ontology is revealed in the question What is real? We might thus ask whether epistemological beliefs are real. According to Baptiste (2001), one of the most troublesome questions surround the issue of ontology is the distinction between the facticity and the caliber of a thing. Facticity refers to the question of whether a thing exists. In our case we might ask if epistemological beliefs do exist.Departing from a realist perspective (Heron & Reason, 1997), the answer within contemporary epistemological research is that epistemological beliefs do hence exist as theories, traits, or resources. For realists, epistemological beliefs are just as real and tangible as observable objects. The quality of a thing refers to the form of a phenomenon or the nature of an object. Within contemporary epistemological research, epistemological beliefs are thought of as psychological and physical phenomena. They are psychological because they reside in a persons mind.They are also (presumably) physical on the basis of the evasion assumption that epistemological beliefs correspond to cognitive units in the brain (Hammer & Elby, 2002). Finally, there is the question of whether it would be possible for epistemological researchers to occupy that epistemological beliefs exist without reference to cognitive psychology or cognitive science. Contemporary epistemological research, although not explicitly referred to, hard back outs on cognitive science and cognitive psychology as its foundational precursors, meaning that these strands are the background theories they implicitly build on.Varela, Thompson, and Rosch (1997) have pointed to the reifying effect of cognitive science on cognitive psychology when describing the centrality of the computer metaphor and similar language use. This computer-oriented languag e is also apparent within educational research in general and epistemological research in particular (Davis & Sumara, 1997). It depicts humans as disenchanted, cerebral beings who receive and process information from events and objects to establish representations (beliefs, desires). These representations in turn govern and give meaning to their own behaviour and that of others.In Josies interview, but also in the other interviews we conducted, we see from an enactive tie-up first and foremost acting persons (Packer & Winne, 1995) who bumble and haphazardly manage to guide their classes through the course. Josies hesitation to infer clear conclusions about the preferred course of action in this particular situation is hard to interpret as an image of information rehearsal, the picture we see framed within contemporary epistemological research.As we see it, in this particular situation her answer to the question How do these students come to know? is embedded within a web of conc rete relations and a process of mutual attunement. Downloaded from http//tap. sagepub. com at Universiteit Maastricht on August 6, 2008 2008 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved.Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 36 THEORY & PSYCHOLOGY 18(1) In our view, Josies hesitation to draw definite conclusions should not be deplored but welcomed, because it may open up opportunities that may lead to epistemological attunement, which may guide students and teachers to the most appropriate end.The interview excerpt with Josie illustrates the existential dialogical nature or ontology in which it is hard to break apart the knower from the known, mind from body, student from teacher, teacher from context, et cetera (Hosking & Bouwen, 2000). Josies teaching might be viewed as a responsive stage dancing in which her behaviour and beliefs co-evolve within a relational web of individual inclinations or cognitions, her skills as a teacher trainer, the characteristics of the studen ts she teaches, and the communion between these elements altogether.In the final section of this paper, we will justify and illustrate our enactive or dialogical world orientation. An enactivist world orientation is grounded in the assertion that people form complex fabrics of fundamentally and inextricably intertwined relationships with everything elsephysically/ biologicly and experientially/phenomenologically (Davis & Sumara, 1997). From this viewpoint, epistemological beliefs are not in the beginning or solely cognitive features, but they are temporarily crystallized enactments in ever-changing webs of mutually defining elements.An Enactive and Dialogical Perspective on Epistemological Beliefs So far, we have focused on a career from Josie and characterized contemporary cognitive epistemological research from a linguistic, methodological, and ontological point of view. The enactive epistemological perspective takes into account many elements, such as the group experience, th e group size, and her own (in)abilities to provide a common thread (structure).In this final part of the discussion, we take up the challenge to sketch and explain more thoroughly the contours of an enactivist rendering that enables us to take into account these elements to which Josie refers. Although we typify our interpretation as enactivist, we will also draw on theoretical notions derived from philosophical hermeneutics (Gadamer, 1990 Widdershoven, 1999) and narrative psychology (Abma, 2000 Josselson & Lieblich, 1999 Lyons & LaBoskey, 2002).Enactivism is an emerging worldview that lingers in between and draws from different domains, including philosophical phenomenology (Varela, 1999), complexity theory (Waldrop, 1992), and evolutionary biology (Bateson, 1979, 1987). Although this worldview is of reasonably recent date, it is receiving more and more attention within the domain of education (Davis & Sumara, 1997, 2001, 2002 Davis, Sumara, & Kieren, 1996 Sumara & Davis, 1997). W ithin the domain of contemporary epistemological research, enactivism has been largely absent, although the work by Belenky et al.(1986) and Lyons (1990) shows strong similarities. In the following we will Downloaded from http//tap. sagepub. com at Universiteit Maastricht on August 6, 2008 2008 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. NIESSEN ET AL. EPISTEMOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN EDUCATION 37 first explain enactivism as it is delineate by Davis and Sumara in the field of education (Davis & Sumara, 1997, 2000, 2002 Davis et al., 1996).Although not directly translated to the educational or the epistemological field, we will also be using some of the terms (eclectically) used by Varela et al. (1997) since they are eminent in the field of enactivism. To enact means to work in or upon or to act or perform. Enactivism refers to the idea of knowing in action. People come to know and believe about the world by interacting with it bodily, e xperientially, and cognitively.This means that individuals are simultaneously biological and social beings who experientially embody both cognitive and physical dimensions within their actions. Because continuous interaction is such an important feature of enactivism, one could claim that it holds a relational ontology meaning that all social realities and all knowledge of self, others, and things are viewed as interdependent or co-dependent constructions existing and known only in relation to each other (Hosking & Bouwen, 2000).When we reexamine Josies story again, we see a sort of inexperienced teacher trainer who struggles with the epistemological question How should these students come to know? Her commonly used approach to create a common thread together is rather problematic given her own (in)abilities within a large group of experienced students. As a consequence of this inexperience she adjusts her epistemological outlook to include the notion that when faced with a rathe r experienced group she needs to hold more control.Interpreting her account enactively, we would claim that her final outlook to this particular situation is the result of the interaction between her ideal to create a common thread together and her communication skills, her self-image, the groups size, and the amount of experience of the group. It is the confrontation of these elements within the concrete enactment that sets the stage for this particular response to arise. The enactive paradigm as exemplified by Varela et al. (1997) emphasizes the relev.