Taking Epistemological Beliefs into Account in Students’ Performance

Abstract

The concept of beliefs has a long history and has been defined in a variety of ways. Beliefs are clustered as a set of interrelated beliefs in a broader, general belief structure or system; they can vary in strength. The more a belief is interrelated with others in this structure, the more difficult it is to alter the belief in question (Pajares F, Britner SL, Valiante G, Contemp Educ Psychol 25:406–422, 2000). Epistemology is the area of philosophy that deals with the nature and formation of human knowledge (Hofer B, Pintrich P, Rev Educ Res 67(1):88–140, 1997). Since the early 1960s, a line of research has drawn to study the relation between dimensions of epistemological beliefs and learning, the correlation between these dimensions, and academic motivational learning in this area. Schommer as one of the pioneers in this research line believed that the epistemological beliefs have different dimensions that are less and more independent. These dimensions include knowledge structure, knowledge finality, knowledge source, acquisition speed and ability to learn. The aim of the research is to study the view that learning ability can be improved and how it is related to sophisticated beliefs. For teachers, in particular, it is also critical to explicitly teach students that scientific knowledge is complex, constantly evolving, and is empirically developed (Lederman NG, J Res Sci Teach 36:916–929, 1999). Suggestions about what instructional techniques to employ are relatively sparse, mostly because researchers have little empirical evidence about how students acquire beliefs and how they change their beliefs (Hofer BK, J Educ Psychol Rev 13:353–383, 2001).