Session Information
10 SES 08 B, Research on Values, Beliefs and Understandings in Teacher Education
Paper Session
Contribution
The research on students' misconception, conceptual change (Sinatra and Pintrich, 2003) and critical thinking (Valanides and Angeli, 2005) has pointed out that even explicit instruction is often ineffective in fostering knowledge construction. There should be a fundamental, paradigmatic system of beliefs about knowledge and knowing ultimately underlying cognitive development. This construct, called personal epistemology (Hofer and Pintrich, 2002) or epistemological belief system (Schommer 1990) has an indirect, but rather strong impact on learning processes and their outcome (Hofer, 2001).
Although the investigation of the construct has been in the foreground of educational research in recent decades, The structure of the construct and hence the valid methodology of assessment is still subject to serious debates (Schraw and Olafson, 2007; Bromme, Pieschland Stahl, 2010). Yet, there seems to be a general consensus – at least among social-constructivists – about the fact that these beliefs have an effect on knowledge construction through the choices of learning strategies and that teachers' epistemological beliefs have an essential effect on students' beliefs through their choice of teaching strategies (Hofer and Pintrich 1997; Hofer, 2001; Feucht, 2010). This highlights the relevance of investigating the epistemological and education related beliefs of teacher training students, being the population that still think with a student's mind, yet trying to adopt to the expectations of their future profession.
In our study we have opted for the cognitive developmental perspective and Deanne Kuhn's model (1999) of the structure and development of epistemological beliefs as the theoretical foundation. According to this model, beliefs about knowledge go through the stages of (1) absolutist, (2) realist, (3) multiplist and finally emerge into (4) evaluativism, where the actual level of development determines the manner of cognitive operations as well. Kuhn's model is in fact a bridge between developmental models and the other major approach, dimensional theories (e.g. Schommer, 1990), sophisticatedly distinguishing between the development of individual judgment domains.
The development, according to Kuhn, Cheney and Weinstock's (2000) findings, begins really early, and continues through plenty of experiences slowly and gradually through most of the lifetime, beyond formal schooling deep into the professional career and in most cases never reaches the evaluativist position globally in all judgment domains. The key element of level-changes is the dialectic understanding of the subjective and objective nature of knowledge, moving from cognitive judgment to refined (self-)reflective metacognitive awareness.
Hence, having used Kuhn's (1999) modeland Kuhn et al.'s (2000) findings in our study, we aimed at investigating the following research questions:
(1) What beliefs do teacher training track students hold about knowledge, learning and teaching? (2) What domain-specific patterns do their beliefs about knowledge reflect? (3) How consequent are they when defining interrelated constructs? (4) In which judgment domains do Hungarian university students hold different beliefs from American students and what degree of difference can be found?
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Bromme, R., Pieschl, S. & Stahl, E. (2010). Epistemological beliefs are standards for adaptive learning: A functional theory about epistemological beliefs and metacognition. Metacognition and Learning, 5, (1), 7-26 Feucht, F. C. (2010). Epistemic climate in elementary classrooms. In L. D. Bendixen and F. C. Feucht (Eds.), Personal epistemology in the classroom: Theory, research, and educational implications. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press Hofer, B. K. ( 2001). Personal epistemology research: Implications for learning and teaching. Educational Psychology Review, 13, 353 – 83. Hofer, B. K., & Pintrich, P. R. (1997). The development of epistemological theories: Beliefs about knowledge and knowing and their relation to learning. Review of Educational Research, 88–140. Hofer, B. K. & Pintrich, P. R. (Eds.). ( 2002). Personal epistemology: The psychology of beliefs about knowledge and knowing. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Kuhn, D. (1999). A developmental model of critical thinking. Educational Researcher, 28, 16 – 25. Kuhn, D., Cheney, R., and Weinstock, M. ( 2000). The development of epistemological understanding . Cognitive Development, 15, 309 – 2. Schommer, M. ( 1990 ). Effects of beliefs about the nature of knowledge on comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 498 – 504. Sinatra, G. M., & Pintrich, P. R. (2003). Intentional conceptual change. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum Schraw, G. & Olafson, L. (2008). Assessing Teachers’ Epistemological and Ontological Worldviews. In M. Khine (Ed.), Knowing, knowledge, and beliefs: Epistemological studies across diverse cultures. New York: Springer Valanides, N. & Angeli, C. (2005). Effects of instruction on changes in epistemological beliefs. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 30, 314–330.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.