  We discuss a case study of the influence of epistemology on learning for a
student in an introductory college physics course. An analysis of videotaped
class work, written work, and interviews indicates that many of the student's
difficulties were epistemological in nature. Our primary goal is to show
instructors and curriculum developers that a student's epistemological stance -
her ideas about knowledge and learning - can have a direct, causal influence on
her learning of physics. This influence exists even when research-based
curriculum materials provide implicit epistemological support. For this reason,
curriculum materials and teaching techniques could become more effective by
explicitly attending to students' epistemologies.
