Individual Epistemology - Essay Example

Introduction

GameStop is a video game and entertainment software retail company headquartered in the United States and operates various retail stores in most countries of Europe. The corporation was first established as a small retailer in 1984 in Texas, US, and has grown to be a leader in the video game entertainment industry through mergers and acquisitions that also saw its capital rise tremendously. GameStop is committed to delivering user-friendly video games that meet the individual needs of all its customers.

Knowledge and its significance

Knowledge can be acquired through various means because there exist numerous ways to attain a certain subject or about something (Nonaka and Nishiguchi, 2001). More often than not, when people think about the acquisition of knowledge that they possess, their attention is drawn to school or college as the source of that knowledge. However, these are not the only existing ways of acquiring knowledge. For example, the process or onset of acquisition of knowledge is way before school when one is a baby or a toddler. When a baby cries, he gets the attention of the parents or caregivers who seek out what the problem is, and a toddler touching something hot immediately feels the pain. Deviant behaviors exhibited by children are met with punishment while good deeds and manners call for praise and reward. All these examples form parts of the knowledge equation despite the fact that the toddler or the child might not be aware of what is happening in his or her life. As the children grow up, there is more knowledge being acquired as they later learn how to dress themselves, tie their shoes, talk, and read. They also acquire knowledge about social aspects of life like family life and relationships.

            In general, everything and all spheres of life including work life is knowledge (Cooper, 1999; Feldman, 2003). Individuals who are interested in acquiring knowledge about certain aspects or subjects can do so through schooling or through an acquaintance. The concept of individual epistemology as they are developed and enacted in professional paid work can be elaborated by looking beyond the present ideas of epistemological beliefs (Hofer & Printrich, 1997), and positioning individual epistemologies as being dynamic, deliberate, and derived in individual-specific means through a unique set of socially-derived experiences that are a consequent of a person’s life history or ontogeny. Considering their dynamic and constitutive nature, it is imperative to centrally place these epistemologies in the dual processes of individual development and reshaping of socially derived norms. An illustration of these propositions can be made by drawing upon situations in which a worker, in this case, a GameStop manager, learns through paid work and how the work is remade, in conditions of greater and lesser close social guidance.

            In essence, personal epistemologies are considered as the primary basis for instigating, monitoring, and evaluating the process and outcome of these enactments. Therefore, it is important to elaborate individual epistemologies in order to understand how people engage in and learn through paid work and the reshaping and alteration of their work activities in certain circumstances and in certain instances. 

            Studies of acquiring socially derived knowledge have often taken place in situations that provide strong direct social guidance and mostly through appraisal of dyads for example expert-novice. Therefore, the current understanding of learning through work situations is largely premised on rich social affordances, including the availability of more informed social partners  

An Account of individual epistemology

            In my profession, in regard to outside support, trust is the most important factor when making a judgment of the support being offered as valued. Therefore, a lot of significant consideration is put on my part on the basis of which the support is provided.  Furthermore, the judgments on the value of the different kinds of assistance with which I engage rise from engagement with and decisive contemplation of these kinds of assistance. This is to say that the belief about trust in and the value of those providing the information is mainly spawned from a process of engagement and critical consideration on the part of these operatives. On an individual level, it is, therefore, crucial to not only engage in looking for and accessing advice but equally important is arriving at decisions about the trueness of the advice obtained. For example, when attending meetings that have been organized by an outside entity such as a government organ, there is active listening on my part in order to appraise the value and worth of what is being said, and in order to appraise and test my own existing knowledge of what has been said. Therefore, this translates to active reception of this information that entails testing out its applicability, authenticity, and worth (Tsoukas, 2005). This means that I have a full engagement in a highly active knowledge-acquiring process characterized by the exercise of an agentic individual epistemology (Moser and Vander Nat, 2003).

            However, beyond engaging with others, it is important to maintain a certain degree of focus, and pragmatism and be selective in my efforts at conscious knowledge acquisition. In most circumstances, I endeavor to point out what is necessary to be known and then direct all energies in a very selective, but active, manner to learn what is necessary to be known.

Conclusion    

            Overall, the center stage that personal epistemologies take indicates that the consideration of acquiring knowledge through work or during working life needs to take into account the roles played by the individuals who are participating in the work. Otherwise, as proposed by Field (2000), there is a necessity to recognize the best way through which these individuals can engage in order to reach the kind of expectations that employers want from them. It is always the practice in most situations that requisites for vocational and professional education do not give adequate consideration to those who engage with programs aimed at motivating or directing their knowledge-acquiring in particular ways.