Ccontemporary Epistemological Research in Education Essay

ABSTRACT. In this article the authors challenge contemporary epistemic research at heart educational settings. After a reconciliation of the current models which treat epistemic beliefs as static and mechanical, the authors present a t distributivelying consume to illust enjoin their consecrateivist sketch that epistemic beliefs should be conceptualized as fluid and dynamic constructs, emerging in web-like configurations. Answers to epistemic questions unfold indoors the interstices and mutual fundamental interactions between people and their environment.Boundaries between studentteacher, single(a)community, cognitionbodily draw argon becoming blurred. From this enactivist sight the researchers role tacks considerably. Instead of de conditionining teachers personal traits and epistemological make-up, the researcher should modify teachers to the subtle ways epistemological beliefs be enmeshed at bottom their day-to-day professional lives, focusing on the complex fabric o f the teaching practice. KEY linguistic process contemporary epistemological research, education, enactivism, lived experiences, personal epistemology.We rehearse in hurlation, only if perform meaning. Information is like the web of links in a wire fence importee is like the cascade of waves on a mountain stream. Cliff Crego (2002) 2002 reckon-poems. com THEORY & psychological science Copyright 2008 Sage Publications. VOL. 18(1) 2745 DOI 10. 1177/0959354307086921 http//tap. sagepub. com Downloaded from http//tap. sagepub. com at Universiteit Maastricht on August 6, 2008 2008 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for technical use or unofficial distribution. 28.THEORY & PSYCHOLOGY 18(1) What is the true nature of acknowledgeledge, and how does a person recognise to know? These questions number 1 became subject of psychological investigation in the late 1960s through the seminal work of Perry (1968). Today, these questions are studied under the comprehensive of resea rch on personal epistemology (Hofer & Pintrich, 2002). Personal epistemology has occur to be seen as the greenality denominator for research d ace within this field and as a term signifying individual conceptions of knowledge and knowing.These conceptions are referred to by many disparate labels, of which the most commonly use term is epistemological belief. Other labels are epistemological posture, epistemological resource, and ways of knowing (Niessen, Vermunt, Abma, Widdershoven, & van der Vleuten, 2004). Because the term (epistemological) belief is already more(prenominal) broadly used within (educational) psychology and thus easy to familiar with, we will use this term throughout the article when referring to issues of knowledge and knowing.Within this article we supply a cognitive psychological and an enactivist account of epistemological beliefs and maintain that the differences between both are ultimately reflected in Cregos distinction between the rehearsing of infor mation and performing of meaning. We will apply the enactivist perspective to an interview surgical incision to en competent deeper understanding of teaching practice. The application of the enactivist account to this case has the character of a hermeneutic circle. This means that the enactivist account provides us with a background view that enables us to understand teachers experiences more fully.At the same snip, the process of application is in addition a practice of opening up and world caught by in the buff insights while interpreting. These insights might alter our epistemological perspective. This study is part of a larger ongoing investigation to understand the phenomenon of resistance by teachers to a Problem-Based acquirement (PBL) environment using the epistemological perspective as our interpretive framework. PBL, in short, is an instructional method that, contrary to frontal teaching, chooses not to instruct students directly, but to aid the process in which stu dents themselves and in collaboration with each other learn the necessary knowledge and skills by working on real-life problems.The role of the teacher is predominate to the success of this method. This is why the example used throughout this article highlights a teacher (Josie) who is situated within a PBL prevail. In the following we will first present the fragment carryn from the interview with Josie. In this fragment she talks most her struggle to introduce a assembly of new staff members to ProblemBased Learning.We will also provide a more in-depth linguistic, methodological, and ontological characterization to contemporary epistemological research. Finally the contours of the enactivist perspective will be drawn in more detail. Josies Case Interviewer (I) How would you describe yourself as a trainer? Josie (J) I always try to get the stem excited about PBL. Downloaded from http//tap. sagepub. com at Universiteit Maastricht on August 6, 2008 2008 SAGE Publications. All r ights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.NIESSEN ET AL. epistemological RESEARCH IN EDUCATION 29 I How do you do that? J By act to get everybody involved. At the same time, this is a potential pitfall. For instance, in a training session last calendar week there was a congregation of student tutors and this group was really very critical, because they had at moveed other PBL courses. That was when I found myself trying to create more constructionthats where I felt inadequate, because there were so many people with so much experience. In these instances its meaning(a) to offer students guidelines and structure.You should be able to deviate from this structurebut only in those cases when its possible. Some teachers see this very clearly. Personally, I tend to create structure together with the groupon the spot. With some groups this works out just fine and with other groups it would yield been better if I had provided a clear structure from the start. We would have come further. I Students get restless? J No, yes, well, theres too much input and too few conclusions. I sound off thats a major thing in PBLits a major issue that too often, maybe, no actual conclusion is reached.Thats really what I think is probably my own shortcoming, something that as a student I thought was missing in the system. That structurethe framework in which you work. I What does this framework locution likewhat is it made of? Do you know what I mean? J A connecting thread. I You phrase that on the one hand youre trying to find this thread and you want to connect it with the experiences of the participantsbut thats difficult because their experiences are so diverse and a common theme is hard to discern.J Well, maybe thats because there just isnt one single thread and because PBL is based on the assumption that the available knowledge is relative. So you cannot say theres one single closure to a specific problem. The important thing is that you are wo rking towards a solution. Josie (a pseudonym) is a junior teacher trainer at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration. She was one out of a group of 10 teacher trainers and 9 new staff members of Maastricht University in the Netherlands who were interviewed about their experiences with PBL, their concerns and unresolved issues.The participants we interviewed came from unlike departments of Maastricht University and differed considerably in experience with PBL, general attitude towards teaching, general teaching experience, and opinion about the value of PBL for student learning. notwithstanding the marked differences in background and experience among the interviewees, Josie was not the only one who presented a complex and multilayered experience. Looking at other participants day-to-day teaching experiences, we in addition encountered varied and multilayered stories. This phenomenon is n all strange nor new.Studies by Perry (1968) and Lyons (1990), but also more recen tly from Phillion and Connelly (2004), show us that when researchers turn their attention to actual teaching experiences, the presented picture of teaching and epistemological beliefs is more textured and complex. The Downloaded from http//tap. sagepub. com at Universiteit Maastricht on August 6, 2008 2008 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 30 THEORY & PSYCHOLOGY 18(1) selection of this particular segment has been guided by the potential to learn from it about the role of epistemological beliefs in teaching.According to pastime (1994), the potential for learning is a different and sometimes superior criterion to representativeness (p. 243). The fragment shows how Josie is struggling with the question How do these students come to know? In the interview, Josie as a teacher trainer talks about her ideas and ideals of student involvement within her courses. She says that in some situations she finds it difficult to realize th ese ideals. She refers to her attempts to structure group sessions. She thinks that in order to do so, she has to develop a connecting thread that will enable the group to achieve a sense of closure.This metaphor nicely illustrates Josies annals approach to teaching. Her goal is to develop, together with the group, a storyline with a beginning, middle, and an ending. She expects that this jointly developed plot will enable the group to close the session in a satisfactory way. Josies ideas and strategy implicitly characterize her epistemological approach to one of the key questions in epistemology How does a person come to know? , or How should this group of students come to know? We can see an answer emerging from the confrontation between her ideals, her self-image, and the group with its characteristics.When she says Its in these instances that its important to offer students guidelines and structure, she refers to her failed attempt to provide guidance, which, to her, was neces sary to give the group a satisfactory sense of closure. This experience appears to have triggered a slight change in her epistemological outlook. Instead of her a priori assumption that students should be regarded as knowledgeable others, who will work together with the teacher to create a common thread, she now thinks that the group process also depends on her ability accurately to estimate the amount of prior experience that students bring to the course and her own experience and skills.Josies rapport with the group of students is coloured by her ideals about student involvement. It is also with this particular group of students, who have so much experience, that she discovers the misfortune of her usual strategy, i. e. developing a structure on the spot together with the group. In her own words Their experiences are so diverse and a common theme is hard to find. As a result she is confused and forced to reassess her epistemological ideal of student involvement in light of the c oncrete situation.Looking back on this experience, she reflects on the epistemological perspective underlying PBL and in doing so realizes that there isnt just one single solution to a problem and that all knowledge can make a contribution. The lived experiences of Josie as a teacher are interpreted as an indication that the epistemological questions can only be meaningfully understood when they are placed within the context of the story that defines the situation as a whole.To put it in more general terms, in order to assess a situation epistemologically or Downloaded from http//tap.sagepub. com at Universiteit Maastricht on August 6, 2008 2008 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.NIESSEN ET AL. EPISTEMOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN EDUCATION 31 make sense of teachers experiences epistemologically, we need to take account of the circumstances that induce each new teaching situation. In Josies case these circumstances implicated her c onviction that a common thread had to be identified, her skills to get the group to do this, the group size and group members varied experience.We would assert that her epistemological belief is essentially indexical (Roth, Lawless, & Tobin, 2000), meaning that it is significant only as seen from within the concrete circumstances in which it arises. In the following section we will focus on the contrast between this view of epistemological beliefs and the prevailing views in contemporary epistemological research. modern-day epistemological Research Although the term contemporary epistemological research suggests that there is a unified research domain, there are in fact different movements to which researchers within the domain of personal epistemology may turn.These movements may be referred to as trait-oriented, conjecture- objected, and resource-oriented. This means that researchers typify epistemological beliefs respectively as traits, theories, or resources (Hammer & Elby, 2 002). Although we agree with Hammer and Elby that there are some important differences among these movements, we also discern an important mutual characteristic all are grow in cognitive psychology. This seems to offer an interesting perspective for an analysis and characterization of the field as a whole, because it would go to the very heart of research on epistemological beliefs regardless of the particular movement.In our view, Cregos phrase rehearsal of information very aptly captures the essence of contemporary epistemological research in relation to three interrelated angles language, methodology, and ontology. Linguistic Idiosyncrasies of Contemporary Epistemological Research A striking linguistic characteristic of the cognitive psychological discourse about the foundations of thinking and believing is a marked preference for the use of nouns (Saljo, 2002). Since contemporary epistemological research is grounded in cognitive psychology, this characteristic is also discern ible in epistemological research.The phenomenon addressed within epistemological research can be denoted by different labels epistemological belief (Duell & Schommer-Aikins, 2001 Hofer, 2000 Hofer & Pintrich, 1997, 2002 Schommer, 1994, 1998b), epistemological position (Perry, 1968, 1988) epistemological theory (Hofer, 2000 Hofer & Pintrich, 1997, 2002), epistemological standard Downloaded from http//tap. sagepub. com at Universiteit Maastricht on August 6, 2008 2008 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved.Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 32 THEORY & PSYCHOLOGY 18(1) (Ryan, 1984a, 1984b), epistemological resource (Hammer & Elby, 2002), epistemological style (Martin, Silva, Newman, & Thayer, 1994), epistemological reflection (Baxter Magolda, 1992, 1994, 1996), epistemological posture (Desaultes & Larochelle, 1997), epistemological orientation (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986), epistemological antecedent (Powell, 1996), and ways of knowing (Belenky et a l. , 1986).The disturbing aspect of the predominance of nouns as the reaching blocks for thinking and believing is that it creates the impression that peoples capacities and ideas should be conceived of as unchanging objects (Saljo, 2002). Nouns distract our attention from the processes in which epistemological constructs can be seen to emerge. Nouns denote a final state as opposed to a process in which actions and thoughts are continuously taking shape and modifying each other. The idea of stability is reinforced by the tendency to represent epistemological beliefs as fixed cognitive traits or theories (Hammer & Elby, 2002).Epistemological beliefs are seen as trait-like or theory-like features which are stored and acted upon inside the brain. From an epistemological trait perspective, individuals beliefs and ideas about epistemology tend to cohere into stable positions or levels, phases or stages, which can be tell from other levels and phases with regards to organization and quality. They are seen as declarative knowledge to which a person has conscious and articulate access. In epistemological theories, beliefs are perceived as being structured in this way (Hofer & Pintrich, 1997, 2002).Congruent with the tendency to see epistemological beliefs as stable and object-like traits or theories stored within the individual mind, most researchers tend to refer to epistemological beliefs in terms of individuals having them (Pehkonen & Torner, 1999). Another feature within Western society that reinforces thinking about epistemological beliefs as objects and unchanging is the linguistic tendency to typify mental phenomena dichotomously, i. e. as belonging to eitheror categories (Amstutz, 1999 Davis & Sumara, 1997).Examples of such dichotomies are mentalphysical, internalexternal, individualcollective (Davis & Sumara, 2001 Heft, 2001). Membership of one category precludes membership of the other one of the pair. This divisive either/or mode of thinking reinforces the image of people as unchanging. Something or someone is or is not of some category. According to Langer (1989, 1997), divisive thinking has this effect when people take categories or opposites literally or without mindful attention. She calls for heedful and critical thinking in which mindless acceptance of categories is regarded as the opposite of powerful learning.We think that a contemporary interpretation with a language that treats epistemological beliefs as stable and trait-like or object-like has trouble interpreting the epistemological picture that arises from teachers concrete perspectives. When we analyse Josies account and realize that she tunes into the situation as a process that unfolds in interaction with the group, we realize Downloaded from http//tap. sagepub. com at Universiteit Maastricht on August 6, 2008 2008 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved.Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. NIESSEN ET AL. EPISTEMOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN EDUCATION 33 t hat the boundaries between individualcollective, selfother, and internalexternal are not clear-cut. They are fuzzy, blurred, and overlapping, and we see no clearly outlined either/or distinctions. We think epistemological beliefs should be better conceived of as emerging characterizations within a process of mutual adaptation, such as in Josies attempts to tune in to the ideas of the group and to her own and reconcile them.Because this process unfolds concurrently with the teaching process, it cannot be fully anticipated a priori or even as it is being enacted. To us, this view is compatible with a concept of epistemological beliefs as continuously unfolding processes, like waves cascading down a mountain stream. Just as the water and the mountain are being shaped and reshaped in their continuous interaction, so is the answer to the epistemological question How do these students come to know? being rephrased under the influence of interaction in a concrete teaching situation.Partic ularities Regarding the Methodology within a Contemporary Epistemological Perspective Characterizing the methodologies that are used in contemporary epistemological research, we see an equally differentiated array of instruments production-type tasks, open-ended interviews, vignettes, observations, illstructured problems, and Likert-type questionnaires (Duell & SchommerAikins, 2001). What is striking to us is that despite this diversity, epistemological beliefs research is exceptionally unitary in its preference for using the individual and his or her beliefs, knowledge, desires, and attitudes as the unit of analysis (Lyons, 1990).We think this preference is congruent with the predilection for nouns emphasizing the object-oriented way of thinking it seems to us that an orientation towards epistemological beliefs as object-like has been (tacitly) operative in the development of instruments that are used to study them as personal and stable traits or theories. We visor that an orien tation to the individual is especially recognizable in questionnaire (Likert-type) studies and standardized interview studies.Despite growing criticism of questionnaire studies, they have been and continue to be an important method in studies of epistemological beliefs (Duell & Schommer-Aikins, 2001). Part of their popularity seems to be attributable to their easy and quick administration. Nevertheless, Hammer and Elby (2002) reveal a fundamental problem when they point out that stage saying is often far removed from day-today teaching practice while at the same time it is assumed to pertain to these contexts (see, e. g., Schommer, 1998a questionnaire Nothing is certain but death and taxes).According to Hammer and Elby, this is neither true nor Downloaded from http//tap. sagepub. com at Universiteit Maastricht on August 6, 2008 2008 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 34 THEORY & PSYCHOLOGY 18(1) viable when made explicit. Most epistemological studies ask participants direct questions about their beliefs, often by presenting epistemological statements and asking them to rate their agreement/disagreement on a Likert scale.For example, students may be asked whether they agree or disagree that the best thing about science courses is that most problems have one right answer (Schommer, 1990, p. 499) the science principles in the textbooks will always be true (Songer & Linn, 1991, p. 769) or knowledge in physics consists of many pieces of information, each of which applies primarily to a specific situation (Redish, Saul, & Steinberg, 1998, p. 217). It is only by a presumption of unitarity that the results of these studies may be considered to apply to all contexts of learning (Hammer & Elby, 2002).However, the item formulation must be generic to preserve internal congruence throughout the whole study. It would be incongruent to perceive of epistemological beliefs as stable traits or theories but apply highl y context-specific or dialogical research methods. A generic item formulation makes perfect sense given the a priori position that epistemological beliefs are stable phenomena. Epistemological beliefs are seen as tangible features and measured congruently.They can therefore be conceived of as entities that impact on teaching behavior linearly, i. e.cause exists as an inherent constituent of epistemological beliefs. Contemporary cognitive epistemological research is concerned with the search for explanations of the epistemological perspective in order to announce and control students and teachers behaviour. Using standardized (cor relative) measuring techniques, researchers are able to identify these linear and law-governed patterns.The role of the researcher in this process is merely to uncover these relationships objectively, with hardness and reliability (Guba & Lincoln, 1989, 1994 Lincoln & Guba, 1985, 2000).In interpreting Josies segment, it is true that Josie shows an episte mological preference to create a common thread together. At the same time we also see that this preference becomes active and is questioned while interacting with this specific group. Her experience of the situation she describes has led her to acknowledge that in this instancegiven her own and the groups experiencea different approach might have been more successful. Confronted with this new experience, a breach is made within otherwise customized behaviour.These breaches provide opportunities for change and revision of ideas to suit local circumstances. We interpret Josies ultimate handling of the situation as the result of reciprocal dynamics between different personal and situational elements, whose influence can be seen from a holistic point of view, but which cannot be reduced to any element or correlation in particular. Downloaded from http//tap. sagepub. com at Universiteit Maastricht on August 6, 2008 2008 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or u nauthorized distribution. NIESSEN ET AL. EPISTEMOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN EDUCATION.35 The Particularities Regarding the Ontology within a Contemporary Epistemological Interpretation Ontology is the subdivision within metaphysics that deals with the nature of being. More concretely, ontology is revealed in the question What is real? We might thus ask whether epistemological beliefs are real. According to Baptiste (2001), one of the most troublesome questions surrounding the issue of ontology is the distinction between the facticity and the quality of a thing. Facticity refers to the question of whether a thing exists. In our case we might ask if epistemological beliefs do exist.Departing from a realist perspective (Heron & Reason, 1997), the answer within contemporary epistemological research is that epistemological beliefs do therefore exist as theories, traits, or resources. For realists, epistemological beliefs are just as real and tangible as observable objects. The quality of a thi ng refers to the form of a phenomenon or the nature of an object. Within contemporary epistemological research, epistemological beliefs are thought of as psychological and physical phenomena. They are psychological because they roost in a persons mind.They are also (presumably) physical on the basis of the default assumption that epistemological beliefs correspond to cognitive units in the brain (Hammer & Elby, 2002). Finally, there is the question of whether it would be possible for epistemological researchers to claim that epistemological beliefs exist without reference to cognitive psychology or cognitive science. Contemporary epistemological research, although not explicitly referred to, heavily draws on cognitive science and cognitive psychology as its foundational precursors, meaning that these strands are the background theories they implicitly build on.Varela, Thompson, and Rosch (1997) have pointed to the reifying effect of cognitive science on cognitive psychology when de scribing the centrality of the computer metaphor and similar language use. This computer-oriented language is also apparent within educational research in general and epistemological research in particular (Davis & Sumara, 1997). It depicts humans as disenchanted, cerebral beings who receive and process information from events and objects to put in representations (beliefs, desires). These representations in turn govern and give meaning to their own behaviour and that of others.In Josies interview, but also in the other interviews we conducted, we see from an enactive outdoor stage first and foremost acting persons (Packer & Winne, 1995) who stumble and haphazardly manage to guide their classes through the course. Josies hesitation to infer definite conclusions about the preferred course of action in this particular situation is hard to interpret as an image of information rehearsal, the picture we see framed within contemporary epistemological research.As we see it, in this parti cular situation her answer to the question How do these students come to know? is embedded within a network of concrete relations and a process of mutual attunement. Downloaded from http//tap. sagepub. com at Universiteit Maastricht on August 6, 2008 2008 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved.Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 36 THEORY & PSYCHOLOGY 18(1) In our view, Josies hesitation to draw definite conclusions should not be deplored but welcomed, because it may open up opportunities that may direct to epistemological attunement, which may guide students and teachers to the most appropriate end.The interview excerpt with Josie illustrates the existential dialogical nature or ontology in which it is hard to dissect the knower from the known, mind from body, student from teacher, teacher from context, et cetera (Hosking & Bouwen, 2000). Josies teaching might be viewed as a responsive choreography in which her behaviour and beliefs co-evolve within a relational web of individual inclinations or cognitions, her skills as a teacher trainer, the characteristics of the students she teaches, and the dialogue between these elements altogether.In the final section of this paper, we will explain and illustrate our enactive or dialogical world orientation. An enactivist world orientation is grounded in the assertion that people form complex fabrics of fundamentally and inextricably intertwined relationships with everything elsephysically/biologically and experientially/phenomenologically (Davis & Sumara, 1997). From this viewpoint, epistemological beliefs are not primarily or solely cognitive features, but they are temporarily crystallized enactments in ever-changing webs of mutually defining elements.An Enactive and Dialogical Perspective on Epistemological Beliefs So far, we have focused on a passage from Josie and characterized contemporary cognitive epistemological research from a linguistic, methodological, and ontological point of view. The e nactive epistemological perspective takes into account many elements, such as the group experience, the group size, and her own (in)abilities to provide a common thread (structure).In this final part of the discussion, we take up the challenge to sketch and explain more thoroughly the contours of an enactivist interpretation that enables us to take into account these elements to which Josie refers. Although we typify our interpretation as enactivist, we will also draw on theoretical notions derived from philosophical hermeneutics (Gadamer, 1990 Widdershoven, 1999) and narrative psychology (Abma, 2000 Josselson & Lieblich, 1999 Lyons & LaBoskey, 2002).Enactivism is an emerging worldview that lingers in between and draws from different domains, including philosophical phenomenology (Varela, 1999), complexity theory (Waldrop, 1992), and evolutionary biota (Bateson, 1979, 1987). Although this worldview is of reasonably recent date, it is receiving more and more attention within the doma in of education (Davis & Sumara, 1997, 2001, 2002 Davis, Sumara, & Kieren, 1996 Sumara & Davis, 1997). Within the domain of contemporary epistemological research, enactivism has been largely absent, although the work by Belenky et al.(1986) and Lyons (1990) shows strong similarities. In the following we will Downloaded from http//tap. sagepub. com at Universiteit Maastricht on August 6, 2008 2008 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. NIESSEN ET AL. EPISTEMOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN EDUCATION 37 first explain enactivism as it is defined by Davis and Sumara in the field of education (Davis & Sumara, 1997, 2000, 2002 Davis et al., 1996).Although not directly translated to the educational or the epistemological field, we will also be using some of the terms (eclectically) used by Varela et al. (1997) since they are eminent in the field of enactivism. To enact means to work in or upon or to act or perform. Enactivism refers to the idea o f knowing in action. People come to know and suppose about the world by interacting with it bodily, experientially, and cognitively.This means that individuals are simultaneously biological and social beings who experientially embody both cognitive and physical dimensions within their actions. Because continuous interaction is such an important feature of enactivism, one could claim that it holds a relational ontology meaning that all social realities and all knowledge of self, others, and things are viewed as mutualist or co-dependent constructions existing and known only in relation to each other (Hosking & Bouwen, 2000).When we review Josies story again, we see a sooner unfledged teacher trainer who struggles with the epistemological question How should these students come to know? Her commonly used approach to create a common thread together is rather problematic given her own (in)abilities within a large group of experienced students. As a consequence of this inexperience sh e adjusts her epistemological outlook to include the notion that when faced with a rather experienced group she needs to hold more control.Interpreting her account enactively, we would claim that her final outlook to this particular situation is the result of the interaction between her ideal to create a common thread together and her communication skills, her self-image, the groups size, and the amount of experience of the group. It is the confrontation of these elements within the concrete enactment that sets the stage for this particular response to arise. The enactive paradigm as exemplified by Varela et al. (1997) emphasizes the relev.