Telling Only What You Know: Epistemic Vigilance, and Digital Citizenship in Storytelling Pedagogy
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29407/d41fy959Abstract
The contemporary digital environment demands robust epistemic vigilance, yet university language curricula rarely address this cognitive discipline. This qualitative, design-based study examines the tension between suspended and recovered scrutiny within an elective, English-medium instruction (EMI) undergraduate course focusing on building confidence through storytelling at a public university in Malaysia. Tracking 59 undergraduate students across a constrained first-person narrative task and a collaborative peer-feedback exercise, the research utilizes reflexive thematic analysis to evaluate student evaluative postures. Findings reveal a profound behavioural dichotomy: during peer assessment, students routinely suspended epistemic vigilance, prioritizing social harmony and offering uncritical praise ("the affirming void"). Conversely, when subjected to strict first-person narrative constraints, the same students successfully recovered epistemic restraint. They navigated the limits of their knowledge using two distinct cognitive archetypes: "Trimmers," who excised unwitnessable plot points, and "Bridgers," who logically re-engineered characters' perceptual access. The study concludes that critical discernment is highly structurally dependent. Embedding narrative limitations into instructional tasks effectively fosters the cognitive discipline required to resist unverified claims, transforming language pedagogy into a vital site for digital citizenship cultivation
Keywords:
epistemic vigilance, perspective-taking, digital citizenship, storytelling pedagogy, English-medium instructionDownloads
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