Epistemological Move Analysis (EMA)

Research Method · All research methods
Evidence · 2 claims (2 for) · 1 study (1 qualitative), q2 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 2 claims rest on one study

Description

Epistemological Move Analysis is an analytical approach that analyzes a teacher's role in students' learning process, used in this study to examine how the teacher directed children's learning. The article distinguishes five moves: "(a) instructional moves," which direct children how to act so they can see what is worth noticing; (b) confirming moves; (c) reconstructing moves, giving children opportunity to reflect on experiences; (d) reorienting moves, encouraging another way to deal with the task; and (e) generative moves, enabling children to generate understanding by reporting perceived knowledge.

Accounts

• Epistemological Move Analysis (EMA) with five epistemological moves for analyzing a teacher's role in children's learning: Epistemological Move Analysis is an analytical approach that analyzes a teacher's role in students' learning process, used in this study to examine how the teacher directed children's learning. The article distinguishes five moves: "(a) instructional moves," which direct children how to act so they can see what is worth noticing; (b) confirming moves; (c) reconstructing moves, giving children opportunity to reflect on experiences; (d) reorienting moves, encouraging another way to deal with the task; and (e) generative moves, enabling children to generate understanding by reporting perceived knowledge. (Ahlquist et al. (2020))

Claims

• After formative intervention, the teacher's presentations shifted from instruction-only moves to including generative, confirming, reconstructing, and reorienting moves [+W]
• Reducing the number of children in a presentation and letting them describe similarities and differences made children's knowledge visible to the teacher [+W]

Related Research Methods

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Key Sources

• Ahlquist, E.-M. T., & Gynther, P. (2020). Teaching in the Montessori Classroom: Investigating Variation Theory and Embodiment as a Foundation of Teachers' Development. Journal of Montessori Research, 6(1). https://journals.ku.dk/jmr. doi:10.17161/jomr.v6i1.12051

Page metadata

Field	Value
type	research-method
id	epistemological-move-analysis-ema
title	Epistemological Move Analysis (EMA)
description	Epistemological Move Analysis is an analytical approach that analyzes a teacher's role in students' learning process, used in this study to examine how the teacher directed children's learning.
status	review
moved_from	element/epistemological-move-analysis-five-moves
generated	by process:sweep-kinds on 2026-10-10
trust	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources	1 — ahlquist-2020

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