The first year university experience: using personal epistemology to understand effective learning and teaching in higher education

Personal epistemological beliefs, or beliefs about knowing, provide a way in which to understand learning in a range of educational contexts because they are considered to act as filters for all other knowledge and beliefs. In particular, they provide a useful framework for investigating learning and teaching for first year students in tertiary education, who are typically considered to hold less sophisticated epistemological beliefs. Using semi-structured interviews, this study investigated the nature of beliefs about knowing and learning of 35 first year teacher education and creative writing students at a large metropolitan university in Australia. The interview analysis indicated that a relationship existed between individuals’ core beliefs about knowing and their beliefs about learning. This relationship has implications for the way in which we support first year students’ learning as they transition into university and progress through their courses.     

Examination of Changes in Prospective Elementary Teachers’ Epistemological Beliefs in Science and Exploration of Factors Meditating That Change

Epistemological beliefs refer to an individual’s thinking and beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowing. The present study examined two research questions: (1) how do prospective elementary teachers’ epistemological beliefs in science change as a result of instruction specifically designed to improve their epistemological beliefs and (2) what role does the conceptual ecology for epistemological beliefs play in their development? The study was correlational with a sample of 161 prospective elementary teachers (148 female, 13 male). Self-report questionnaires tapping four dimensions of epistemological beliefs (certainty-simplicity, justification, source, attainability of truth) were given to prospective elementary teachers at two time points during an introductory science course. Results indicated that prospective elementary teachers became more sophisticated in their beliefs across all four dimensions of epistemological beliefs. It was found that one component of conceptual ecology for epistemological beliefs, thinking dispositions, was related to the development of epistemological beliefs. Prospective teachers with high thinking dispositions developed more sophisticated beliefs in comparison to prospective teachers with low thinking dispositions.     

Exploring the relationship between physics-related epistemological beliefs and physics understanding

Three studies are reported that investigated the relationship between secondary school students’ physics-related epistemological beliefs and physics conceptual understanding. Study 1 involved the development of a Greek Epistemological Beliefs Evaluation Instrument for Physics (GEBEP) which was administered to 394 students (10th graders). Study 2 investigated the hypothesis that physics epistemological sophistication as measured by the GEBEP is a good predictor of physics understanding. The participants were selected from the 394 students who participated in Study 1. More specifically we selected the 10% (38) students with the highest scores in the GEBEP (high epistemological sophistication group, HES) and the 10% (38) students with the lowest GEBEP scores (low epistemological sophistication group, LES) and measured their understanding of Newton’s three laws using the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation instrument (FMCE) developed by Thornton and Sokoloff (1998). The results showed that the HES group had significantly higher scores in the FMCE than the LES group. Regression analysis showed that beliefs regarding the Construction and Stability of physics knowledge and the Structure of physics knowledge were good predictors of physics understanding. Study 3 re-examined the same hypothesis on a new independent sample of students. The results based on the entire sample, showed again that beliefs regarding the Construction and Stability of physics knowledge predicted physics understanding. Overall, the results suggest that sophisticated physics-related epistemological beliefs are necessary but not sufficient for physics understanding and point to the importance of taking them into consideration in physics education.     

THE CONDITIONAL AND INTERACTION EFFECTS OF EPISTEMOLOGICAL BELIEFS ON THE SELF-REGULATED LEARNING OF COLLEGE STUDENTS: Cognitive and Behavioral Strategies

This study examines the conditional and interaction effects of each of four dimensions of the epistemological beliefs of college students regarding the ability to learn, the speed of learning, the structure of knowledge, and the stability of knowledge on four measures of the cognitive components (elaboration, rehearsal, organization, metacognition) and four measures of the behavioral components (effort regulation, management of time and study environment, peer learning, help seeking) of self-regulated learning strategies. Students with more sophisticated beliefs about the nature of knowledge and learning were more likely than their peers to use educationally productive cognitive and behavioral strategies in their learning. Beliefs about one’s ability to learn had the most significant and substantial effects, and the structure of knowledge had the second most significant and substantial effects on students’ use of self-regulated cognitive and behavioral learning strategies. Although a student’s belief about the stability of knowledge by itself had a statistically significant effect on only one learning strategy, this belief served as moderator for six of the 11 statistically significant interaction effects of epistemological beliefs on the use of cognitive and behavioral learning strategies. Implications of these findings for theory, research, policy and practice are examined.     

The domain generality–specificity of epistemological beliefs: A theoretical problem,a methodological problem or both?

Research on epistemological beliefs has clearly increased in the last decade. Even though the construct is clearer and relevant data are being collected, there are important theoretical and methodological issues that need further clarification. One of them is the debate about the domain generality–specificity of epistemological beliefs.I argue that there are both theoretical and methodological difficulties that hinder a more fruitful approach of the domain generality–specificity debate. Differences in goals and scope of the diverse conceptualizations about epistemological beliefs and how they devise the role of content-domain and context are a major source of difficulties. Methodological problems such as whether such epistemological beliefs can be measured “in isolation”—free of content and context influence—or the impossibility of collecting direct measures of epistemological beliefs may influence how the domain generality–specificity question is approached. Some suggestions about how these difficulties may be overcome are developed. The relevance of exploring epistemological beliefs across domains and across contexts is emphasized.     

Epistemological beliefs and epistemic strategies in self-regulated learning

How do epistemological attitudes and beliefs influence learning from text? We conceptualize epistemological attitudes and beliefs as components of metacognitive knowledge. As such, they serve an important function in regulating the use of epistemic strategies such as knowledge-based validation of information and checking arguments for internal consistency. We report results from two studies that investigated the effects epistemological attitudes and beliefs on the use of epistemic strategies in academic learning and the motivational states that mediate these effects. Study 1 (N = 289) tested a mediation model with epistemological attitudes (separate vs. connected knowing) and textual characteristics as distal predictors, and learning goals (learning factual knowledge vs. developing an own standpoint) as mediator variables. Separate knowing had large indirect effects on the use of epistemic strategies via the goal to develop an own point of view. In addition, learners adapted their learning goals and epistemic strategies depending on objective characteristics and the perceived familiarity of the texts they read. In Study 2 (N = 124), epistemological beliefs concerning the uncertainty of knowledge increased the use of epistemic strategies only when extrinsic study motivation was low. A mediated moderation model established this effect to be mediated by specific epistemic curiosity. These results illuminate the mechanisms of how epistemological attitudes and beliefs affect self-regulated learning. In contrast to other types of learning strategies, the use of epistemic strategies seems to be strongly and consistently linked to epistemological attitudes and beliefs.     

Separating academic and social experience as potential factors in epistemological development

Education has been regarded as the major factor in epistemological development. However, academic and other aspects of educational experience are difficult to disentangle. In the present study, 86 Israeli students in the same selective department differed by whether they had done mandatory army service before the university or would do it after. This difference allowed a comparison between epistemological levels of students with different social experiences but with similar academic experiences. Those with the socially diverse army experience were less likely to have absolutist thinking about everyday knowledge contexts. Those with more years of education had more sophisticated academic-context epistemological beliefs in their discipline only.     

Investigating the Relationships Among Elementary School Students’ Epistemological Beliefs, Metacognition, and Constructivist Science Learning Environment

The research questions addressed in this study were: what types of epistemological beliefs do elementary students have; what types of metacognition do elementary students have; and what are the relationships among students’ perceived characteristics of constructivist learning environment, metacognition, and epistemological beliefs. A total of 626 students enrolled in sixth, seventh, and eight grades of nine elementary public schools located in Ankara, Turkey constituted the participants of this study. Constructivist learning environment survey (CLES), Junior metacognitive awareness inventory (Jr. MAI), and Schommer epistemological belief questionnaire (EB) were administered to students. Factor Analysis of Jr. MAI revealed both knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition items were loaded into one factor. Confirmatory factor analysis of EB revealed a four factor structure namely innate ability, quick learning, omniscient authority, and certain knowledge. Regression analyses revealed that metacognition and omniscient authority were significant predictors of personal relevance dimension of CLES. Metacognition was found as the only predictor of the student negotiation. Innate ability and metacognition significantly contributed to uncertainty. This study revealed that the elementary students with different mastery levels hold different epistemological beliefs and multi-faceted nature of elementary school students’ metacognition was seemed to be supported with this study. It was found that metacognition contributed to model more than epistemological beliefs for all three dimensions of CLES.     

Are sophisticated students always better? The role of topic-specific personal epistemology in the understanding of multiple expository texts

In a sample of 135 Norwegian education undergraduates, we examined the effects of topic-specific epistemic beliefs concerning the simplicity and source of knowledge on deep-level understanding of multiple expository texts about the same topic—climate change. The results showed that students holding sophisticated simplicity beliefs, viewing knowledge about climate change as complex, gained better multiple-text understanding than did students holding naïve simplicity beliefs, viewing knowledge about climate change as simple. However, students holding sophisticated source beliefs, viewing knowledge about climate change as personal construction, performed poorer than did students holding naïve source beliefs, viewing knowledge about climate change as transmitted from experts. Moreover, students believing knowledge to be complex and, simultaneously, relying on expert authors were at a particular advantage with respect to multiple-text understanding. Thus, in this complex reading-task context, source beliefs usually located at the sophisticated ends of epistemic belief continuums turned out to be maladaptive, presumably because they distracted from the building of a high-quality representation of author and text meaning.     

Changes in epistemological beliefs in elementary science students

Epistemological beliefs, or beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowing, are currently a target of increased research interest. The present study examined two research questions: (1) how do epistemological beliefs change over time? and (2) what role do gender, ethnicity, SES, and achievement play in their development? The study was correlational with an ethnically diverse sample of 187 fifth grade students (46% Latino, 27% Anglo, and 27% African American, and 67% low SES). Self-report questionnaires that tapped four dimensions of beliefs (source, certainty, development, and justification) were given to students at two time points during the course of a nine-week science unit. Results showed that students became more sophisticated in their beliefs about source and certainty of knowledge over time, but that there were no reliable changes in development and justification. There also were no main or moderating effects of gender or ethnicity, but there were main effects of SES and achievement. Low SES and low achieving children had less sophisticated beliefs in comparison to average SES and high achieving children. There were no significant interactions between gender, ethnicity, SES, and achievement for any of the four belief measures. Results are discussed in terms of personal and contextual factors and their role in the facilitation of epistemological belief development.     

Profiling individual differences in student motivation: A longitudinal cluster-analytic study in different academic contexts

This research examined whether distinct student profiles emerged from measures of interest, mastery goals, task value, and self-efficacy in samples of Norwegian student nurses and business administration students. Additionally, profile differences in self-reported strategy use and epistemological beliefs were examined, as well as changes in student profiles over one academic year. Distinct groups of participants were identified in both samples, with considerable consistency in student profiles across the two academic contexts. In both contexts, more positively motivated participants consistently reported more use of deeper-level strategies and expressed more sophisticated beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowledge acquisition. The longitudinal analysis showed that despite overall decreases in adaptive motivation in both contexts, many participants were able to maintain relatively high levels of motivation across the academic year, and, especially among the business administration students, quite a few developed more adaptive motivation over time. Yet, a great many participants in both samples lost some of their enthusiasm and engagement.     

Epistemological beliefs and self-regulated learning with hypertext

This study investigated the relationship between epistemological beliefs, prior domain knowledge and self-regulated learning. Biology students (n?=?25) and humanities students (n?=?26) who varied in their epistemological beliefs learned with a hierarchical hypertext about the topic of genetic fingerprinting. During their learning processes, logfiles and questionnaire data were collected. Results indicate that students do metacognitively calibrate their learning process to the complexity of the presented learning material, e.g. by processing more complex deeper-level nodes longer. Furthermore, these calibration processes were significantly related to epistemological beliefs. For example, more ‘sophisticated’ epistemological beliefs were associated with processing more nodes, whereas more ‘naïve’ beliefs were related to spending more time on single nodes. Both effects were especially pronounced on deeper hierarchical hypertext levels. Prior domain knowledge also had an impact, especially on comprehensibility ratings: biology students considered all nodes more comprehensible than humanities students. Additionally, epistemological beliefs as well as prior domain knowledge were also significantly associated with the learning outcome: for example, more prior domain knowledge led to significantly higher learning outcome.     

Approaching and avoiding arguments: The role of epistemological beliefs, need for cognition, and extraverted personality traits

Because argumentation may promote deeper processing of content, this study examined factors affecting students’ dispositions to engage in argument, specifically epistemological beliefs, need for cognition, and extraversion (assertiveness and warmth). An instrument developed by [Infante and Rancer, 1982] was used to measure dispositions to approach or avoid arguments. Subjects were 238 undergraduates who completed surveys of the relevant constructs. Contrary to expectation that epistemological beliefs would predict the approach component by affecting the perceived usefulness of argumentation, regression analysis indicated that epistemological beliefs instead predicted the avoidance component (as did a desire to maintain warm relationships). Need for cognition predicted the approach component, whereas assertiveness predicted both. The need to better understand why some students avoid arguments is discussed.     

PRESERVICE TEACHERS’ EPISTEMOLOGICAL BELIEFS IN PHYSICS, CHEMISTRY, AND BIOLOGY: A MIXED STUDY

The purposes of the study were to assess preservice teachers’ domain-specific epistemological beliefs and to investigate whether preservice teachers distinguish disciplinary differences (physics, chemistry, and biology) in domain-specific epistemological beliefs. Mixed-method research design guided the present research. The researcher explored three epistemological dimensions: certainty and simplicity of knowledge, justification for knowing, and source of knowledge. Both quantitative and qualitative results suggested that a domain-specific epistemological beliefs system is a valid model to describe preservice teachers’ epistemological beliefs. In terms of epistemological beliefs, disciplinary differences in physics, chemistry, and biology were discussed in the last parts of the study.     

An analysis of the nature of epistemological beliefs: Investigating factors affecting the epistemological development of south korean high school students

The purpose of this study is to investigate the nature of epistemological beliefs about learning (or learning beliefs) by analyzing the type of factors involved in the epistemological development of South Korean high school students (N=455). Learning beliefs are implicit assumptions held by learners about the source and certainty of knowledge and the ways to obtain knowledge. Previous studies on the epistemological development of American high school students showed that American students learning beliefs are positively related with their age, amount of formal education, and academic achievement. Multiple regression analysis of this study, however, showed that no such relationships were identified from the present South Korean sample except between students beliefs and their academic achievement. In addition, the present study showed that South Korean students learning beliefs were related with their independent-self construal (individualistic self-view) but not with their interdependent self-construal (collectivistic self-view). These results reconfirmed the culture-specific nature of epistemological beliefs which was identified from previous comparative studies with South Korean and American college students (Youn, Kim, & Yang, 1999; Youn, 2000). The differences between the present results and previous findings with South Korean college students will be further discussed in terms of the sub-cultural variations between South Korean young generations. A paper presented at the 26th International Association of Cross Cultural Psychology, Pultusk, Poland, 2000/7/16-21     

Reasoning about science-related uncertain issues and epistemological perspectives among children

In order to fulfill social responsibility, one of the goals in science education is to equip students with the competence of scientific reasoning. Nevertheless, psychological studies have found that people in general do not have adequate ability to make scientific arguments in everyday situations. Later studies found that the inadequate ability was associated with the development of personal epistemology. However, the conclusion is drawn mostly from research with adults or adolescents. This study attempted to examine the relation between scientific reasoning in informal contexts and the epistemological perspectives demonstrated by elementary school pupils. Participants of the study were 62 sixth graders who were interviewed to criticize two science-related uncertain issues. Content analysis showed that most children had developed the absolutist form of personal epistemology. Chi-square analyses suggested that the more multiplist view toward the certainty of knowledge and the process of knowing, the better coordination of theory and evidence as well as reflective reasoning. In addition, children’s beliefs about the certainty of knowledge, source of knowledge and concept of justification were seemingly consistent across different issues. Nevertheless, content analysis showed that the criteria used to make judgments varied with problem contexts.     

Beliefs about Schooled Knowledge: Domain Specific or Domain General?

This study explored the domain specificity of students' beliefs about academic knowledge in three related studies. Using a four-factor model as an initial framework, a series of domain-specific items about mathematics and history was developed. In Study I, these items were administered to 182 undergraduates, and the psychometric properties and underlying factor structure were examined via exploratory factor analysis. In Study II, the modified instrument, the Domain-Specific Beliefs Questionnaire (DSBQ), was administered to 633 students and a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted. A subsample of participants' responses on the DSBQ was also compared to responses on Schommer's epistemological questionnaire. Study III involved a second confirmatory factor analysis using data from a new sample (n = 523). Those data were examined for potential gender differences. Overall, the results of this investigation suggested that students possess certain domain-specific beliefs about knowledge in mathematics and history. Further, a significant moderate relationship between the DSBQ and Schommer's questionnaire provided some evidence of domain-generality in undergraduates' epistemological beliefs.     

Pre-service teacher education students' epistemological beliefs and their conceptions of teaching

A study using both quantitative and qualitative methods was conducted in the final year of a Bachelor of Education programme to examine the student-teachers' epistemological beliefs and conceptions of teaching. The results show that most of the student-teachers (i) strongly believed that learning effort was more important than innate ability, (ii) strongly believed that knowledge changes, and (iii) were inclined to question the authority of knowledge. Although student-teachers who had sophisticated or mixed epistemological beliefs tended to believe in constructivist or mixed conceptions of teaching as predicted, inconsistent cases were identified. Implications for teacher education programmes are discussed.