In this fifth chapter of "Interpreting Kant in Education," different ideas about subjectivity and objectivity are explored. Kant's first-person stance for investigation, on which subjectivity cannot be escaped, is contrasted with what John McDowell calls the 'sideways-on' stance of scientific investigation, which looks to free itself…

Threshold concepts are a widely used idea, particularly in curriculum design and evaluation of student learning. However they can be criticised as being hard to identify, vague and teacher imposed. Using the cognitive theory of Bernard Lonergan we argue that his epistemology enables us to reframe threshold concepts by adding a learner focussed…

Scholars claim that there are different sources of knowledge. These sources have come to be thought of as foundations for knowledge. Cognitivists are not united on the foundation of knowledge but they agree that knowledge is possible as against the skeptics. Intuitionism is a cognitive theory which states that knowledge is attainable through the…

In response to the authors, I demonstrate how threshold concepts offer a means to both contextualise teaching and learning of quantum physics and help transform students into the culture of physics, and as a way to identify particularly troublesome concepts within quantum physics. By drawing parallels from my own doctoral research in another area…

This article examines how numerical intuition for prices develops after a major change in currency. University students in Portugal (Study 1) and Austria (Study 2) made price estimates for 40 different items from November 2001 to June 2002, surrounding the time at which these countries switched to the euro. Overall results are more in accordance…

This paper addresses many theories of learning and human development which are very similar with regards as to how they suggest learning occurs. The differences in most of the theories exist in how they treat the development of the learner compared to methods of teaching. Most of the major learning theories taught to educators today are based on…

Concepts of critical thinking and psychological type are reviewed. An instrument that has gained wide acceptance for evaluating individual preferences is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Four dimensions of the MBTI that can also be considered learning preferences, with their associated contrasting preferences, are: (1) orientation toward…