The study of personal epistemology is concerned with people‟s beliefs or assumptions about the nature of knowledge and knowing, otherwise referred to as epistemological assumptions. As a relatively new field of enquiry, questions about the nature and scope of the construct and how best to investigate it have been tackled by many researchers although fundamental questions still remain. The current study explored the possible effects of three characterisations of questions aimed at eliciting epistemological assumptions on conclusions drawn about such assumptions in terms of their level of sophistication. The three characterisations explored were the level of directness with which questions targeted epistemological assumptions, the domain-specificity of the question, and whether the questions were open or closed-ended. A paper-and-pencil measure was designed to manipulate these variables, and the conclusions drawn about the assumptions of a sample of 30 postgraduate Psychology students were compared across the conditions to determine if there was any evidence for their influence. Comparison of results suggested that the characterisations do exert an influence and caution is raised regarding the validity of methodologies that have been, and continue to be, employed in the study of personal epistemology. The findings further lend support to particular conceptualisations of the construct, but at the same time also unearth additional questions about how epistemological beliefs are best construed and studied.

No description available.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Educational Leadership / Sarah Jane Fishback / This study explored the effects of personal epistemological beliefs about mathematics and beliefs about the ability to do well in mathematics on achievement in a college-level, developmental mathematics class. The influences of gender, age, and ethnicity on these beliefs as they relate to mathematics achievement were also explored. The Mathematics Belief Scales (MBS) was adapted from the Indiana Mathematics Belief Scales and Self-Description Questionnaire III to measure beliefs about the time it takes to solve mathematics problems, the importance of conceptual understanding in mathematics, the procedural emphasis in mathematics, the usefulness of mathematics, and self-concept about mathematics. MBS was administered to 159 participants enrolled in Intermediate Algebra over two semesters at an urban, state-supported mid-western university and two small private mid-western universities. Responses to the surveys and scores on the final exams for the Intermediate Algebra courses were analyzed using descriptive statistics, the Pearson product-moment correlations, analysis of variance techniques, and hierarchical regression analysis. Results indicated that students generally held nonavailing beliefs about mathematics and mathematics self-concept. Students typically believed that mathematical problems should be solved within ten minutes. Students generally did not believe that math problems can be solved with logic and reason instead of learned math rules. Over 40% of the students did not believe that mathematics beyond basic mathematics was useful to everyday life. Students were also generally not confident in their ability to solve mathematics problems. Additionally, men’s self-concept was significantly higher than women’s self-concept. Adult learners’ self-concept was also significantly higher than traditional age students’ self-concept. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that the importance of understanding mathematical concepts positively influenced final exam scores for men more so than women and self-concept positively influenced final exam scores for women more so than men. These results indicate a need for academic experiences at the college-level that will challenge students’ current belief system and provide an environment that is supportive and conducive to building individual self-confidence.

Diversity is now an essential matter in US public schools. For the first time in America's history, students of color will constitute a majority of the public school enrollment; on the other hand, most early childhood and elementary teachers remain monolingual, white, middle-class females (Hussar & Bailey, 2019). The demographic mismatch between students and teachers presents a critical concern for teacher preparation programs (Banks et al., 2005; Gay, 2018; Muñiz, 2019). Therefore, this study proposed that understanding the relationship between pre-service teachers' epistemological beliefs and their culturally responsive classroom management self-efficacy illustrated factors that may improve their teaching concept toward diversity. The study also evaluated whether early childhood (PreK-3) pre-service teachers held different personal epistemologies of teaching and culturally responsive classroom management self-efficacy beliefs than elementary (K-5) pre-service teachers. Lastly, the study explored factors that may contribute to pre-service teachers' personal epistemological beliefs of teaching and their self-efficacious beliefs about culturally responsive classroom management. The study used the explanatory sequential mixed-methods design that contained two phases. In Phase I, 111 pre-service teachers completed two surveys: the teachers' Personal Epistemologies of Teaching Scale (PT-PETS) and the Culturally Responsive Classroom Management Self-Efficacy scale (CRCMSE). In Phase II, six pre-service teachers participated in semi-structured interviews. The results indicated no significant linear correlation between pre-service teachers' sophisticated personal epistemological beliefs and their confidence in employing culturally responsive classroom management. In addition, the integration of the quantitative and the qualitative data demonstrated that pre-service teachers held sophisticated personal epistemological beliefs of teaching. They also showed different confidence levels about applying culturally responsive classroom management. A two-way ANOVA revealed that only semester level significantly affected the PT-PETS scores, where pre-service teachers in the seventh semester performed better than those in the fifth semester. The current study illustrated various positive and negative factors that may influence pre-service teachers' epistemological beliefs of teaching and their self-efficacious beliefs in culturally responsive classroom management, which may provide insight for teacher preparation programs.

This study investigated the effect of the epistemologically and metacognitively stimulated 7E learning cycle (EM-7ELC) on tenth grade students&rsquo / physics achievement and epistemological understandings in physics. The participants of the study included 107 (49 Female, 58 Male) tenth grade students at two Anatolian teacher training high schools in Ankara. A quasi-experimental with matching-only pretest-posttest control group design was employed. Two intact classes of each school were randomly assigned to the experimental and control group. The experimental group was instructed based on the EM-7ELC while the control group was taught with the traditional instruction. The study was conducted in 2009-2010 academic year. The Force and Motion Achievement Test-I and II were administered to assess the students&rsquo / achievement in force and motion unit. The Turkish Physics Expectation Survey was applied to probe the students&rsquo / epistemological understandings in physics. Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was employed to examine the effect of the instruction relied on the EM-7ELC on the students&rsquo / epistemological understandings when their pre-epistemological understandings were controlled. The result indicated that there was a significant difference between two groups&rsquo / post epistemological understandings in favor of the EM-7ELC group. In this study, a statistically significant interaction between the mode of instruction and the students&rsquo / pre-epistemological understandings was observed. Aptitude treatment interaction (ATI) analysis was used to figure out the nature of this interaction. The result of the analysis demonstrated that the traditional instruction was more effective for promoting physics achievement for the students&rsquo / indicating very low epistemological stance. However, the EM-7ELC was more effective for the other types of the students.

This work examines and presents evidence for the existence of a gap in epistemological views between academic and practice marketers. Few if any academics would seem to challenge the ‘gap’ premise but the importance of any gap and its nature are issues about which little agreement exists. The intractable nature of the academic practitioner gap has a long history of interesting and diverse debate ranging from Dewey’s argument about the true nature of knowing to contributions based on epistemic adolescence, ontological differences and more pragmatic suggestions about different tribes. Others include the rigour versus relevance issue, failures in curriculum or pedagogy and a clash between modernist and postmodernist epistemologies. Polanyi’s description of tacit versus explicit knowledge further extends the debate as do issues of knowledge creation and dissemination in particular through Nonaka. Irrespective of approach actual evidence for a gap was largely based on argument rather than empirical proof. This work address that lack. The intractability of the gap suggests that it is at root, epistemic. To identity the existence of a gap in such terms a domain specific epistemic questionnaire developed by Hofer was used. A factor analytic process extracted a common set of factors for the domain of marketers. Five epistemic factors were identified. Three of these showed significant difference in orientation between practitioners and academics confirming that the theory practice gap is tangible and revealing an indication of its nature Broadly results from factor analysis with interpretation informed by factor item structure and prior theoretical debate suggests that academics and practitioners views on knowledge and how they come to know share similarities and differences. Academics are more likely to see knowledge as stable, based on established academic premise legitimized from academy. Practitioners are more likely to see knowledge as emerging from action, as dynamic and legitimised by results. Other significant findings included the emergence of dialogue as a means of closing the gap, and the emergence of a group of academics with significant practice experience termed here as, hybrids, who are located in the Academy but mostly share their epistemic views with practitioners. Correlation analysis showed that academic propensity to engage in dialogue with practice moved academic factor scores towards practitioners. This shows that dialogue has a clear role in both perpetuating the gap in its absence or reducing it. Fundamentally dialogue plays a clear role in bridging the two epistemologies and in providing for additional epistemic work. Finally a solution to bridging the gap has been proposed. The model called dialogic introspection melds dialogue and introspection to create epistemic doubt, the volition to change and a means of resolution. The model avoids prescription of what form knowledge should take but instead adopts a stance similar to more mature disciplines like medicine in which the status of academic work is enhanced in line with its relevance to practice which itself is embodied in dialogue. This approach recognizes the centrality of epistemology as shaping the conditions necessary for recognizing epistemologies as hierarchies in which the epistemology most capable of additional epistemic work is the most desirable. Such an epistemology would have the capacity to add epistemic work and reinforces Nonaka’s call for epistemology to be recognized as central to knowledge creation.

No description available.

No description available.

Current teacher education research calls for investigation of the "missing paradigm," the connection between teachers' conceptions of knowledge and learning and their instructional practices. This call has been heeded in the scholarship on personal epistemology that reveals the role of knowledge in learning and instruction within and across various socio-cultural contexts. This study extends the work on the relationship between teachers' personal epistemologies and instructional practices to a previously unexamined population: international and U.S. Teaching Assistants (TAs). Employing a two-phase explanatory mixed methods approach, this study examines the relationship between personal epistemologies and instructional practices of two teaching assistant (TA) groups, international and U.S.-born, in U.S. university contexts. In the first phase of the study, an epistemological beliefs survey was conducted with two groups of TAs, 106 international and 50 U.S.-born, at four large research universities in the Mid-Atlantic States. Their answers were analyzed with a focus on the relationship between group variables and seven dimensions of personal epistemologies. Building on the initial quantitative study results, in the second phase, a qualitative case study was carried out to investigate the relationship between epistemic positions and teaching practices for four TAs representing international and domestic TA groups within two academic disciplines at a public research university in Philadelphia, PA. Forty four undergraduate student data from focus-group interviews and surveys also were collected to examine the relationship between TAs' instructional practices and student opinions about their teaching. The quantitative results showed a significant group difference in the knowledge beliefs domain and the relational views domain (p < .001). In general, ITAs held a higher degree in their beliefs about certainty of knowledge than did US TAs. In addition, US TAs assumed a closer relationship with their students than did the ITAs, while unlike common assumptions, US TAs assumed a higher degree of status differentiation from students than did ITAs. The findings of the qualitative phase of the study revealed that the relationship between TAs' epistemic positions and instructional practices was not fully consistent. In the case of the US TAs, much of the inconsistency of the relationship is explained by the lack of pedagogical knowledge and pedagogic skills, which would enable them to exercise control over the types of instructional approaches that they wanted to implement at a discourse level in class. ITAs' instructional practices were more closely aligned with learning strategies that they had developed through educational experiences in their home countries and with their generalized assumptions about attitudes of U.S. students toward learning. The results also show that ITAs are as qualified and competent instructors in teaching of undergraduate students as US TAs are, and that ITAs' teacher-centered approaches are well received by the students who expect explanation, guidance, direction, and reinforcement on the part of their instructors. In addition, the analysis of TAs' epistemic positions revealed domain specificity as well as group differences to be major compounding factors affecting TAs' professed epistemologies. Pedagogic as well as theoretical implications of the study are discussed. / CITE/Language Arts

本研究欲探討個人知識論信念、創造性人格與創意生活經驗整體及各因素間的相互關係，最後並瞭解三者間的關連性。研究使用改編之「高中職生個人知識論信念量表」、「創造性人格量表」、以及吳靜吉（2002）等人所編製之「創意生活經驗量表」三種量表進行構念測量。分為北、中、南三區分層取樣，共803名受試，有效樣本共745人。問卷回收後，以描述性統計、Cronbach’s α信度係數、探索性因素分析、驗證性因素分析、皮爾森積差相關、獨立樣本t檢定、多元迴歸分析、及典型相關分析進行信效度考驗及各項研究問題分析。 研究結果顯示： （1）高中職二年級學生個人知識論信念比一年級學生偏向純真型信念、更相信學習能力天生，且較不具創造性人格特質。 （2）越持純真型個人知識論信念者，則其在人格特質上越不依從傳統、越不機 智靈巧、也越不自主勇敢。 （3）個人知識論信念越偏向純真型信念者，則其在創意生活經驗中的「運用新 知精益求精」、「開放心胸」、「製造驚喜意外」及「舊瓶新裝」四個領域上 的經驗越少。 （4）當個體越具有創造性人格，就擁有越多創意生活經驗。 （5）越持純真型個人知識論信念者，越不具有創造性人格特質；越不具有創造 性人格特質者，也有較少的創意生活經驗產生；但個人知識論信念的傾向， 對個體創意生活經驗並不具有直接的影響力。 （6）個人知識論信念越「未分化」，則越不具有「創造性人格」，也越不常有「創 意生活經驗」。 由研究結果，建議可透過對學生個人知識論信念的調整，而間接促成創造力之有效提升。以下提出幾點對於教學實務上之建議： （1）讓學生透過「覺察、反思、行動、實踐」的歷程進行學習。 （2）採用跨領域及討論式之教學方法進行教學。 （3）增強學生對學習的正向思考。 另提出對未來研究之幾點建議： （1）可對個人知識論信念之「依領域而不同」進行探究。 （2）以「實驗研究法」探討個人知識論信念與創造力之關係。 （3）針對高中職階段學生的「智力本質觀」與學習動機之相關進行探究。 / This study is to explore the relationship among personal epistemology belief, creative personality and creative life experience. Three scales were used to measure those constructs, “Personal Epistemology Scale for High School Student”, “Creative Personality Scale”, and “Creative Life Experience Scale”. There are 803 high school students from north, middle and south areas of Taiwan participated in this survey. The descriptive statistic, Cronbach’s α coefficient analysis, explorative factor analysis, confirmative factor analysis, Pearson’s correlation analysis, independent student test, multiple regression analysis and classical correlation analysis were used to analysis data. The main findings of this study were: 1. The personal epistemology belief of second grade high school students were naiver than first grades students, and with less creative personality. 2. The one who tends to hold naïve personal epistemology belief, may obey tradition less, and with less witty and braveness. 3. The one who tends to have naïve personal epistemology belief, would have less creative experience. 4. The one with more creative personality, the more creative life experiences he or she has. 5.The less differentiation of personal epistemology belief, the less creative personality and creative life experience one has. Based on the findings, the following were suggested for teaching and future research: For teaching: 1. Learning by “knowing, reflection, action and practice” 2. Using cross-areas and discussion instruction. 3. Strengthen students’ positive thinking for learning. For future research: 1. To investigate the domain specific of personal epistemology belief thinking. 2. Conduct the relation between personal epistemology belief and creativity by experimental method. 3. To explore the relations of high school students’ entity intelligence belief and learning motivation.