New Perspectives in Science Education
Epistemically Tagged Groundworks for Secondary Astronomy and Physics
Joshua DePasquale, Marshall University, West Virginia; Chartiers Valley School District, Pennsylvania, (United States)
Abstract
Secondary physics and astronomy content typically reaches students without any signal of its epistemic status, so an established measurement, a model-dependent assertion, and a point where no experiment can decide all arrive carrying the same authority. This abstract presents a lightweight classroom scheme that tags each claim with one of three epistemic statuses: [SETTLED] for results empirically settled within the regimes a course reaches, which no live program treats as negotiable; [MODEL] for the assertions of our best current frameworks, confirmed in their domains and exactly what frontier programs probe for failure; and [INTERPRETIVE] for points where empirically equivalent alternatives exist, so no experiment decides between them and the honest move is to teach the competing accounts. Crucially, the tags mark what kind of claim each is, not how much evidence backs it: a [MODEL] claim may be better confirmed than a [SETTLED] one. Applied directly to lesson materials, problems, and datasets, they give students an explicit cue to the kind of knowledge they hold and pre-answer 'but how do we know that?' for each status: a robust body of agreement for [SETTLED], a framework with its confirmations and known frontiers for [MODEL], and an honest 'no experiment decides this, so here are both accounts' for [INTERPRETIVE]. Making epistemic status explicit rather than tacit is an accessibility gain, not only a conceptual one, and the scheme is low-friction and pairs naturally with authentic-data, model-comparison instruction. The abstract specifies the tagging criteria, offers worked examples across several units, and describes the classroom routines that keep the tags visible during instruction. Implications for curriculum design, inclusive practice, and future evaluation of students' epistemic reasoning are considered.
Keywords: epistemic status; scientific inquiry; astronomy education; physics education; curriculum design
REFERENCES
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