A growing body of research demonstrates that teacher epistemological beliefs (Fives & Gill, 2014; Hashweh, 1996; Olafson & Schraw, 2006; Sosu & Gray, 2012) and participation in research (Brophy & Pinnegar, 2005; Henson, 2001; Niemi, 2008) positively affect teachers' efficiency and style of work. As a result of this development, well-developed research skills and an understanding of philosophy, including epistemology and general theories of education, are mandatory courses and requirements for teacher certification in many countries (Ontario College of Teachers, 2014, Niemi, 2008; University of Helsinki, 2014).

Quantitative and qualitative research methods are also required in most undergraduate and post-graduate teacher education and social science programs (Kansanen, 2003; Niemi, 2011). This is the case not only in countries with highly efficient systems of education, where research-based learning has a long tradition (Niemi, 2008), but also in several other European and North American countries that recognize the important role of research methods (Bendixen & Feucht, 2010; Ostinelli, 2009) and statistics (Kai, Dempster & Hanna, 2011) for teacher education and efficient professional practices.

Most studies related to teacher epistemological beliefs embrace only in-service teachers while a relatively small proportion examines epistemological beliefs of student teachers. In contrast, studies exploring statistics anxiety often involve students and rarely simultaneously examine epistemological beliefs and attitudes towards research methods and statistics. Consequently, student teachers’ perception of scientific knowledge is not well known, nor are their epistemological beliefs (Bendixen & Feucht, 2010; Hofer, 2004) and how this influences their methodological preferences and attitudes toward statistics.

The main assumption of our study, which is similar to studies that emphasize connections between different aspects of pre-service teachers’ science beliefs, (Kazempour & Sadler, 2015) is that epistemological beliefs, attitudes toward research methods, and statistical anxiety are closely connected and interdependent.

The proposed study aims to evaluate the existing instruments that examine student epistemological beliefs and to contribute to this domain by exploring relationships between teachers' epistemological beliefs and methodological preferences since there are evident knowledge gaps in this domain (Niemi, 2013). The study also examines some of the factors associated with widely prevalent and harmful statistical anxiety (Kesici, Baloğlu & Deniz, 2011; Onwuegbuzie, 2004). Finally, the study explores associations between several basic demographic factors and students' epistemological beliefs, their interest in learning research methods and their feelings about statistics. 

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