Personal epistemology treats the issue of how people develop naïve conceptions of knowledge and knowing in order to make sense of the world (Hofer & Pintrich, 1997; 2002). The sophisticated learner will maintain epistemological beliefs that support flexible thinking (Schommer-Aikins, 2002) and Shraw and Sinatra (2004) point out that teachers’ with more sophisticated epistemological beliefs were more flexible and engaged with pupils. Because of this, it is an urgent need to investigate in what extent the teachers’ training programs foster more sophisticated epistemological beliefs. Schommer (1990) hypothesized an epistemic model incorporating five dimensions of epistemic beliefs. Those were Omniscient Authority i.e. authorities have access to otherwise inaccessible knowledge, Certain Knowledge i.e. absolute knowledge exists and will eventually be known, Quick Learning i.e. learning occurs quick, Simple Knowledge i.e. knowledge consists of discrete facts and Innate Ability i.e. the ability to acquire knowledge is endowed at birth. Less sophisticated beliefs is here seen as strong beliefs in authority, knowledge as certain, learning as quick, knowledge as simple and ability as innate. Here we adopt the theoretical epistemological belief model by Buehl and Alexander (2005; 2006) with nested and reciprocal relations between general and specific domains. This model claims among other things that the general beliefs are shaped by an interactive sociocultural context. We hypothesize from this theory and previous results of educations influence on implicit theories of intelligence (Jonsson, Korp, Erlandson & Beach, submitted for publication) that education will exert influence on the student population in general and more sophisticated epistemological beliefs would show in the end of the teacher training programs (last course) compared to the beginning (first course). All participants (preschool, primary and secondary school student teachers) N = 53 (first course) and N = 40 (last course) completed the Epistemic Belief Inventory, EBI (Schraw, Benedixen, & Dunkle, 2002). EBI is constructed to measure adults’ epistemological beliefs and is developed from the five epistemic dimensions described by Schommer (1990). After having received general instructions about the study the participants were instructed to respond individually to each item and rate on a 10-point scale to what extent they agreed with the statements in the EBI. Four one-way ANOVAs were computed with between factor course (first versus last course at the teacher training college) on the four dependent measures of personal epistemological beliefs (authority, certain knowledge, simple knowledge and innate ability). Our hypotheses that teachers training courses would develop more sophisticated personal epistemological beliefs within the student teachers were confirmed for the dependent measures Simple knowledge and Innate ability. There were a significant change between the first teacher training course and the last in that more sophisticated epistemological beliefs was found in the end of the teachers education for Simple knowledge F(1, 92) = 16.77, p < 0.001 and Innate ability F(1, 92) = 15.23, p < 0.001 there the students in the end of there education believed knowledge to be more complex and further, ability was to a lesser extent seen as endowed at birth. However, no effect of education could be found on the students’ personal epistemological beliefs of Omniscient Authority and Certain Knowledge. This is quite problematic in that after the teacher training program the same belief in authority and absolute knowledge was shown. This could have serious implication for democracy and flexible/critical thinking in the future teacher staff and the population and is in line with King and Kitchener (2002) results.

Variance analyzes (ANOVA) and the Epistemic Belief Inventory, EBI (Schraw, Benedixen, & Dunkle, 2002). EBI is constructed to measure adults’ epistemological beliefs and is developed from the five epistemic dimensions described by Schommer (1990).

Our hypotheses that teachers training courses would develop more sophisticated personal epistemological beliefs within the student teachers were confirmed for the dependent measures Simple knowledge and Innate ability. There were a significant change between the first teacher training course and the last in that more sophisticated epistemological beliefs was found in the end of the teachers education for Simple knowledge F(1, 92) = 16.77, p < 0.001 and Innate ability F(1, 92) = 15.23, p < 0.001 there the students in the end of there education believed knowledge to be more complex and further, ability was to a lesser extent seen as endowed at birth. However, no effect of education could be found on the students’ personal epistemological beliefs of Omniscient Authority and Certain Knowledge. This is quite problematic in that after the teacher training program the same belief in authority and absolute knowledge was shown.