INFLUENCE OF EPISTEMIC KNOWLEDGE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENTIFIC PRACTICES: THE EPIS-PRACT PROJECT

EPIS-PRACT is a three-year project funded by FEDER and the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. It seeks to analyse the influence of epistemic knowledge in the development of scientific practices (inquiry, modelling and argumentation). The main hypothesis that guides this project is that the epistemic knowledge involved in the development of scientific practices is necessary to meaningfully engage in the practices because it is required, for instance, to understand how scientific claims are supported by data and reasoning in Science (argumentation), the use and role of physical, system and abstract models and their limits (modelling) or how measurement error affects the degree of confidence in a scientific research (inquiry). The project comprises a set of studies framed in different types of design and different orientations: theoretical and practical. In this communication we address part of the theoretical perspective, identifying the aspects of epistemic knowledge that are examined in Science Education empirical research and the epistemic criteria considered in the development of scientific practices.