The Draw‐An‐Environment Test Rubric (DAET‐R): exploring pre‐service teachers’ mental models of the environment

The use of drawings as representations of personal mental models or images is one method of analyzing personal beliefs. This article discusses the development of the Draw‐An‐Environment Test and Rubric (DAET‐R) for assessing the mental models or images of the environment held by pre‐service teachers. It also provides results of preliminary research using the DAET‐R to assess pre‐service teachers’ personal beliefs and understandings about the environment, as interpreted from their drawings. Results of this pilot study using the DAET‐R for scoring early childhood pre‐service teachers’ drawings of the environment suggest that the participants’ mental models of the environment are incomplete. Results of this study also show that the DAET‐R can provide information about pre‐service teachers’ beliefs about the environment useful to teacher educators in the development and delivery of environmental education.     

Text-belief consistency effect in adolescents´ comprehension of multiple documents from the Web (El efecto de consistencia en la comprensión lectora de los adolescentes de documentos múltiples provenientes de Internet)

ABSTRACT

Readers often comprehend belief-consistent information from multiple texts better compared with belief-inconsistent information (text-belief consistency effect). The aim of the present study was to investigate whether adolescents’ comprehension of multiple texts is similarly impacted by their beliefs. Moreover, readers’ prior knowledge and an alternating (compared with a blocked) mode of presenting multiple texts were expected to attenuate the text-belief consistency effect. High school students read two belief-consistent and two belief-inconsistent texts on one of two scientific issues in different modes of presentation (blocked vs. alternating). A recognition task was used to assess situation model strength for each text, and prior beliefs and prior knowledge were measured before the main experiment. As expected, in the blocked mode of presentation high school students had a stronger situation model for belief-consistent texts. In the alternating mode of presentation, participants had similar situation model strengths for the different texts. Moreover, high-knowledge participants experienced a text-belief consistency effect, whereas low-knowledge participants had weaker and similar situation models for the texts.     

Elementary and Middle School Students’ Conceptions of Knowledge,Information, and Truth

Although the study of epistemic beliefs has received growing interest in the past decades, this research tends to focus on high school and undergraduate students, and does not address beliefs about information and truth, concepts that have been regarded as critical for learners in 21st-century educational contexts. In this study, the authors examined 87 elementary and middle school students’ beliefs about the definitions of and relations among knowledge, information, and truth through the use of a graphical and justification task, and addressed the consistency of beliefs across contexts and domains. Results indicated that students tended to regard knowledge, information, and truth as interrelated, and the majority of students described their beliefs as consistent across contexts and domains.     

The structure of students’ beliefs about the use of representations and their performance on the learning of fractions

Cognitive development of any concept is related with affective development. The present study investigates students’ beliefs about the use of different types of representation in understanding the concept of fractions and their self‐efficacy beliefs about their ability to transfer information between different types of representation, in relation to their performance on understanding the concept. Data were collected from 1701 students in Grade Five to Grade Eight. Results revealed that multiple‐representation flexibility, ability on solving problems with various modes of representation, beliefs about the use of representations and self‐efficacy beliefs about using them constructed an integrated model with strong interrelations in the different educational levels. Confirmatory factor analysis affirmed the existence of differential effects of multiple‐representation flexibility and problem‐solving ability in respect to cognitive performance and the existence of general beliefs and self‐efficacy beliefs about the use and the role of representations. Results suggested the invariance of this structure across primary (Grades Five and Six) and secondary education (Grades Seven and Eight). However, there are interesting differences concerning the interrelations among those cognitive and affective factors between primary and secondary education.     

Changes in Children’s Agency Beliefs and Control Expectancy in Classes With and Without a Special Emphasis in Finland from Grade Four to Grade Six

This study examined changes in pupils’ agency beliefs and control expectancy from grade four to grade six, and whether they were associated with studying in a class with a special emphasis on a subject as compared to studying in a class without emphasis. After controlling for the effects of mother’s education, prior school achievement, and gender, we found that the average pattern of change varied for different action-control beliefs, and that class membership did not moderate these changes. Mother’s education, pupils’ prior school achievement, and gender all predicted class membership, but their effects on action-control beliefs varied depending on the type of belief. Implications for educational policy will be discussed.     

Exploring university-based teacher educators’ teaching beliefs and practice: a Hong Kong study

This study explores two higher education-based language teacher educators’ teaching beliefs and how they implemented their beliefs in classroom practice. Drawing on data from in-depth interviews and classroom observation, the findings revealed the teacher educators’ multiple and complex beliefs, which were derived from their past experiences and continued to be shaped and transformed through their professional work. The study also shows that while the participants tried to act in accordance with their beliefs in their teaching of teachers, they encountered some contextual obstacles (e.g. the ‘publish-or-perish’ system) which resulted in the gap between their beliefs and practice. Through their continuous reflections and agentive work, the teacher educators tried to close the gap and facilitate their students’ learning to teach. This study concludes with some implications for current teacher education and higher education on how to promote language teacher educators’ cognitive learning and continuous development.     

Comprehension of Multiple Documents With Conflicting Information: A Two-Step Model of Validation

In this article, we examine the cognitive processes that are involved when readers comprehend conflicting information in multiple texts. Starting from the notion of routine validation during comprehension, we argue that readers' prior beliefs may lead to a biased processing of conflicting information and a one-sided mental model of controversial issues (text-belief consistency effect). An important distinction is that such biases occur routinely as a by-product of basic comprehension processes. However, readers can actively engage in strategies that work against the biasing effects of prior beliefs when they possess the relevant cognitive resources and are motivated to activate them. A review of published studies that examined belief effects in multiple text comprehension supports the two-step model of validation. We discuss implications of this model for multiple text comprehension and educational practice and delineate directions for future research.     

Beliefs about justification for knowing when ethnic majority and ethnic minority students read multiple conflicting documents

We examined the role of justification for knowing beliefs in learning and comprehension when ethnic majority and ethnic minority students from the same school classes read five conflicting documents on the scientific issue of sun exposure and health. Results showed that the more ethnic minority students trusted scientific authorities and the less they relied on personal opinion when validating knowledge claims in the domain of science, the more they learned from and the better they comprehended the documents. In contrast, justification for knowing beliefs did not seem to play a role in learning and comprehension among ethnic majority students. These results may reflect that the documents represented more of a challenge to the ethnic minority students, with justification beliefs affecting learning and comprehension processes to a greater extent when the task is perceived as an ill-structured problem. This study is probably the first to indicate different relationships between various justification beliefs and performance in different language and cultural groups, having theoretical as well as educational implications.     

High School Students’ Informal Reasoning Regarding a Socio‐scientific Issue,with Relation to Scientific Epistemological Beliefs and Cognitive Structures

This study investigated the relationship among 68 high school students’ scientific epistemological beliefs (SEBs), cognitive structures regarding nuclear power usage, and their informal reasoning regarding this issue. Moreover, the ability of students’ SEBs as well as their cognitive structures for predicting their informal reasoning regarding this issue was also examined. The participants’ SEBs were assessed with a quantitative instrument; their cognitive structures were assessed through tape‐recorded interviews and were further analyzed with the ‘flow map method’; their reasoning regarding nuclear power usage was assessed with an open‐ended questionnaire; and, then, their responses were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. It was revealed that students’ beliefs about the justification of scientific knowledge (an aspect of the beliefs on the nature of knowing science) were significantly correlated with their reasoning quality; the extent and the richness of students’ cognitive structures as well as their usage of the information processing mode, ‘comparing,’ were positively correlated with their reasoning quality. A series of regression analyses further confirmed that students’ use of the information processing mode, ‘comparing,’ was the most significant factor for predicting reasoning quality, while their beliefs regarding the justification of scientific knowledge was the other important predictor.     

Epistemic beliefs in action: Spontaneous reflections about knowledge and knowing during online information searching and their influence on learning

In the present study it was investigated whether high school students are spontaneously able to reflect epistemologically during online searching for information about a controversial topic. In addition, we examined whether activating epistemic beliefs is related to individual characteristics, such as prior knowledge of the topic and argumentative reasoning skill; also whether learning from the Web is influenced by epistemic beliefs in action and the ability to detect fallacies in arguments. The participants (N = 64) were students of Grade 13, who were asked to think aloud during navigation. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed. Findings reveal that most participants spontaneously activated beliefs about all four dimensions identified in the literature, that is, about the simplicity/complexity, certainty/uncertainty, justification, and source of knowledge, at different levels of sophistication. Most epistemic reflections were about the source of knowledge. Two patterns of contextualized epistemic beliefs emerged and significantly influenced learning from the Web, which was also affected by participants' ability to identify argumentative fallacies.     

Pre-service EFL teachers’ beliefs about foreign language learning

Beliefs are central constructs in every discipline which deals with human behaviour and learning. In addition to learner beliefs about language learning, language teachers themselves may hold certain beliefs about language learning that will have an impact on their instructional practices and that are likely to influence their students’ beliefs about language learning. This article reports on a study of beliefs held by 217 full-time undergraduate students (142 females and 75 males) enrolled in English Language Teaching (ELT) programmes at seven state universities in Turkey. Horwitz’ BALLI was used to collect data. The data reveal that where some of the results carried by pre-service teachers might surprise language teaching educators and teacher trainers, some others probably confirm their experiences and intuitions.     

Epistemic beliefs and prior knowledge as predictors of the construction of different types of arguments on socioscientific issues

This study investigates whether university students’ epistemic beliefs and prior knowledge about controversial socioscientific issues (SSIs) can predict the different types of arguments that students construct. Two hundred forty-three university students were asked to construct different types of supportive arguments—social, ethical, economic, scientific, ecological—as well as counterarguments and rebuttals after they had read a scenario on a SSI. Participants’ epistemic beliefs and prior knowledge were assessed separately. Results showed that students’ epistemic beliefs and prior knowledge predicted the quantity, quality, and diversity of the different types of arguments the students constructed. In particular, students who held sophisticated epistemic beliefs about the structure of knowledge and exhibited relatively more robust prior knowledge scores, produced arguments of greater quantity, better quality, and higher diversity than students with less sophisticated epistemic beliefs and low prior knowledge scores. Educational implications are discussed.     

Do students’ beliefs about knowledge and knowing predict their judgement of texts’ trustworthiness?

We examined whether epistemic beliefs predict students’ evaluation of documents. Undergraduates read two texts on climate change. Participants judged the trustworthiness of each text and then indicated the criteria for their rating. We found that readers who believe strongly in relying on personal interpretations rather than on authorities trusted both documents less and used the document’s content or their own opinion as criteria for judging trustworthiness. We also found that readers who believe that knowledge claims should be critically evaluated through logic and rules rated the science text as more trustworthy and used the criteria of their own opinion, author and content more than readers who believe in relying on their own experiences. These effects hold true while controlling for readers’ prior knowledge and text comprehensibility.     

Epistemic metacognition in context: evaluating and learning online information

This study examined epistemic metacognition as a reflective activity about knowledge and knowing in the context of online information searching on the Web, and whether it was related to prior knowledge on the topic, study approach, and domain-specific beliefs about science. In addition, we investigated whether Internet-based learning was influenced by epistemic metacognition and the individual differences examined. Seventy 8th grade students were interviewed retrospectively after searching for online information about the scientifically controversial topic of dinosaur extinction. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed. Findings showed that participants expressed reflections about the simplicity/complexity, certainty/uncertainty, source, and justification of knowledge at different levels of sophistication, according to three patterns of epistemic metacognition. Prior knowledge was not related to epistemic metacognition in the search context, while study approach and epistemic beliefs about science were associated significantly, although modestly, with aspects of online knowledge evaluation. Moreover, findings revealed that Internet-based learning was influenced by overall science-related epistemic beliefs. Learning from Internet sources was also affected by study approach and epistemic reflections about the justification of online knowledge, as well as by the interaction between beliefs about the justification of scientific knowledge and beliefs about the justification of the knowledge accessed concerning the topic.     

年轻英语教师语音教学信念与行为的对比分析

语音是学习语言的基础和提高语言整体水平的重要切入点。由于影响语音学习因素的多样性和复杂性,使得语音教学从来都是英语教学的薄弱环节。教师作为教学活动的组织者和领导者,在语音教学过程中起主导作用。本研究的目的在于揭示教师的语音教学信念及其语音教学信念与教学行为间的关系,观察二者是否一致,并探究其原因。     

Preschool teachers’ narratives: a window on personal‐professional history,values and beliefs

This study investigated 10 Israeli preschool teachers’ reasons for choosing their profession and their perceptions of the teacher’s role. A narrative approach was chosen because teachers’ narratives can reveal their practical knowledge and the meanings they ascribe to their teaching. Data were subjected to content analysis and linguistic analysis. The content analysis revealed that choice of profession flowed from personal history and family background and reflected the needs, priorities and ambitions of each teacher. Most of the participants chose this profession at an early stage, in childhood or adolescence, and were influenced by close family members. An ongoing connection was revealed between key events and people in the preschool teachers’ narratives, their perceptions of the teacher’s role and their professional selves. The linguistic analysis revealed beliefs and values expressed through figurative language, and especially metaphor. Metaphoric themes related mainly to the nurturing of children and were consistent with beliefs and values expressed directly.     

Exploring the relations between epistemic beliefs,emotions, and learning from texts

Conflicting claims about important socio-scientific debates are proliferating in contemporary society. It is therefore important to understand the individual characteristics that predict learning from conflicting claims. We explored individuals’ beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowing (i.e., epistemic beliefs) and their emotions as potentially interrelated sets of learner characteristics that predict learning in such contexts. Undergraduate university students (N = 282) self-reported their topic-specific epistemic beliefs and were given three conflicting texts about climate change to read. Immediately after each of the three texts, participants self-reported the emotions they experienced. Following reading and self-report, participants wrote summaries of the conflicting texts. Text-mining and human coding were applied to summaries to construct two indices of learning from conflicting texts that reflected which source’s information is privileged in memory. Results from structural equation modeling revealed that epistemic beliefs were consistent in their predictions of emotions, which in turn variously predicted different learning outcomes. In particular, a belief that knowledge is justified by inquiry predicted surprise and curiosity, which at times facilitated learning. In contrast, confusion, predicted by passive reliance on external sources, related to impaired memory of conflicting content. Theoretical and methodological implications are discussed for research on the relations between epistemic beliefs, emotions, and learning about controversial topics.     

Effects of text-belief consistency and reading task on the strategic validation of multiple texts

In the comprehension of multiple controversial scientific texts, readers with strong prior beliefs tend to construct a one-sided mental representation that is biased towards belief-consistent information. In the present study, we examined whether an argument in contrast to a summary task instruction can increase the resource allocation to and strategic validation of belief-inconsistent information which should be positively related to comprehension. Undergraduate students read one belief-consistent and one belief-inconsistent text about a controversial scientific issue either with an argument or a summary task instruction. The use of strategic validation and memorization strategies was assessed with think-aloud protocols, and a verification task was used to investigate comprehension outcomes. As predicted, readers following a summary task read belief-consistent information longer and used more memorization strategies for such information. Readers following an argument task spent similar time reading both text types and used more validation strategies when reading the belief-inconsistent text. In addition, the use of strategic validation during reading the belief-inconsistent text improved comprehension for this text type but hindered the comprehension of the belief-consistent text.     

Epistemic Beliefs about Justification Employed by Physics Students and Faculty in Two Different Problem Contexts

This study examines the epistemic beliefs about justification employed by physics undergraduate and graduate students and faculty in the context of solving a standard classical physics problem and a frontier physics problem. Data were collected by a think-aloud problem solving session followed by a semi-structured interview conducted with 50 participants, 10 participants at freshmen, seniors, masters, PhD, and faculty levels. Seven modes of justification were identified and used for exploring the relationships between each justification mode and problem context, and expertise level. The data showed that justification modes were not mutually exclusive and many respondents combined different modes in their responses in both problem contexts. Success on solving the standard classical physics problem was not related to any of the justification modes and was independent of expertise level. The strength of the association across the problem contexts for the authoritative, rational, and empirical justification modes fell in the medium range and for the modeling justification mode fell in the large range of practical significance. Expertise level was not related with the empirical and religious justification modes. The strength of the association between the expertise level and the authoritative, rational, experiential, and relativistic justification modes fell in the medium range, and the modeling justification mode fell in the large range of practical significance. The results provide support for the importance of context for the epistemic beliefs about justification and are discussed in terms of the implications for teaching and learning science.     

教师信念与课堂教学决策探析

教师的信念对课堂决策有着深刻的影响,教师是带着自己的信念,即对学生、学习和教育根深蒂固的看法走进课堂进行教学的。本文在对教师信念为主题的研究综述的基础上,对语言教学中教师信念的本质、特点、构成、来源及效性进行了系统性探讨,指出语言教师作为教学反思主体,其教学信念在基于学生行为和反馈的基础上可以得到了重塑和发展。