A COMPENDIUM OF SCALES for use in the SCHOLARSHIP OF TEACHING AND LEARNING

Park, 2005). The merit of the instrument also includes profiling the pattern of a person’s
epistemological beliefs across domains using a more economical method compared to the
traditional approach of interviewing the participant. The data depicted by this model are
particularly useful in addressing the theoretical question of whether personal epistemology is
domain-generic or specific. The limitation of this instrument includes the relatively limited
statistical analysis that can be done with the forced-choice data generated. Ahola (2009)
discussed the potential of this instrument and how qualitative components can be integrated to
better capture individuals’ reasoning underlying their choices, allowing more sophisticated
analysis.
Reasoning About Current Issues Test (RCI)
The RCI (King and Kitchener, 1994; see Wood, Kitchener, & Jensen, 2002 for description and
format of the test) is a test created based on the Reflective Judgment Model. The test asks testtakers’
opinions about controversial authentic issues (e.g., artificial sweeteners, federal debt,
global warming). Test-takers are asked to rate, on a five-point continuum from very dissimilar
to very similar, how alike his or her opinion is on each issue compared to ten provided
statements. The statements are claims about justifications that match different stages of the
Reflective Judgment Model, such as “Researchers disagree because they are really studying
different facets of the issue and the best ways to address one facet of the issue are different
than the best ways to address other facets” and “Researchers arrive at different conclusions
because the evidence itself is complex and they examine it from several perspectives. They
arrive at a decision by synthesizing their knowledge, experiences, and expert opinions.” In the
last section, test-takers select up to three statements that best match their own thinking about
the issue. The RCI score is based solely on the choices made in this section, whereas the rating
serves only to probe test-takers’ personal judgments on particular issues (King & Kitchener,
2004). In other words, the scoring focuses not on assessing factual knowledge or cognitive skills
in making reflective judgments, but the assertions that a person holds about how judgments
are made. The results therefore reveal more about epistemic inclination than intellectual
ability.
The RCI can be administered on a computer (see http://www.reflectivejudgment.org/index.cfm)
and in paper-and-pencil format. The reported Cronbach’s alphas of the RCI ranged from .50s to
.70s (Duell & Schommer-Aikins, 2001; King & Kitchener, 2004). A cross-sectional analysis of over
9,000 students of undergraduate, graduate, and professional education programs reported that
the RCI is able to discriminate between students across schooling after controlling for covariants
(Wood et al., 2002), confirming a progressive developmental trend as predicted by the
Reflective Judgment Model.
Measuring Multiple Epistemological Beliefs
Instruments using variations of Schommer’s (1990) model are listed. All three of them are selfreport
questionnaires in paper-and-pencil format utilizing five-point Likert-scales (except for
Hofer’s, 2004, which uses a 7-point Likert-scale), with the degree of agreement measured
reflecting sophistication of an individual’s epistemological beliefs.
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