Ways of knowing :their association with gender and higher order thinking

Abstract

Research examining women’s personal epistemology found two beliefs that tend to be gender related, connected knowing and separate knowing. Connected knowing is characterized by empathizing and placing oneself within another person’s situation to see from the inside out. Separate knowing, while not the opposite of connected knowing, is characterized by detaching oneself from a situation to analyze and be objective in an argument. Both ways of knowing have been hypothesized to support higher order thinking. The purpose of this study is to test this hypothesis by examining the relationship between ways of knowing and the established epistemological beliefs, as well as, the relationship between ways of knowing and need for cognition. The participants for this study were 457 undergraduate and graduate college students who completed questionnaires assessing their epistemological beliefs, (i.e. Certainty of Knowledge, Structure of Knowledge, Source of Knowledge, Control of Knowledge Acquisition, and Speed of Knowledge Acquisition), ways of knowing (separate and connected) and need for cognition. The relationships among these variables were examined. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)