ABSTRACT
King and Kitchener (1994) hypothesized that when people are asked to reveal what they think can be known about the world, how that knowledge is gained and how that knowledge is certified, they simultaneously reveal how they come to believe what is unknowable. Their results suggest a seven-stage reflective judgment model that provides an effective restatement of the “higher order learning as an increasing moral independence” process first described by Perry. People in the first positions are operating under pre-reasoning conditions. Those in the middle three positions are emerging as reasoners. The seventh position characterizes people who are in full command of critical reasoning.
