[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Qualitative Methods in PER: A Critical Examination.] Epistemic beliefs about physics are most often investigated using quantitative instruments that reflect binary conceptualizations of those beliefs. This study reports from a qualitative study which used continua to represent the epistemic beliefs…

As a discipline, educational psychology is somewhat idiosyncratic in terms of content and methodologies. Such idiosyncrasies are likely rooted in the philosophical history of the discipline which involves both the empirical tradition of Thorndike and the contextualized pragmatics of James and Dewey. Despite this, there is little teaching about…

With a primary objective to engage students in the process of science online, we transformed a long-standing laboratory course for first-year science students into a more accessible, immersive experience of current biological research using a narrow and focused set of primary literature and the Consider, Read, Elucidate a hypothesis, Analyze and…

Teachers' beliefs about knowledge in their subject deeply impact their classroom practice. This study analyzed the epistemic beliefs about physics knowledge held by Saskatchewan high school physics teachers using a newly designed framework of epistemic beliefs about physics knowledge. Results suggest that teachers' epistemic beliefs about physics…

Numerous studies have been published about instruments intended to quantitatively measure students' epistemic beliefs about science; however, as this researcher would discover, developing an instrument to accurately measure epistemic beliefs about physics knowledge is not always as straightforward as the literature would make it seem. Given a lack…

The purpose of this article is to present the scale items, the statistical characteristics, and evidence of validity of the previously unpublished Beliefs about Learning and Teaching Questionnaire that examines elementary teachers' epistemological beliefs and their beliefs about learning and teaching in inclusive classrooms. In this study, 186…

The purpose of the study was to examine undergraduate students' conceptions of inquiry and the relationship of inquiry conceptions to epistemic beliefs. Data were obtained from 107 university students (80 female, 27 male) using an open-ended questionnaire to examine their conceptions of inquiry and Schommer's Epistemological Beliefs Questionnaire…

The academic advantages of knowledge are often compromised when learners and teachers hold counterproductive epistemic beliefs, that is, personal convictions about the nature of knowledge and knowing. This study was an investigation of associations between prospective physical educators' game-specific epistemic beliefs (worldviews and beliefs in…

The authors analyse epistemological beliefs and their relationship to the knowledge developed by students engaged in a reorganized programme of training for secondary school teachers in Quebec. They examine two contexts for initial training: the training in their discipline that university students follow, and the practical training students…

This article presents the Quebec ministry of education's (MELS) strategy for diversifying the national historical narrative that is transmitted in the province's History and Citizenship Education program as well as the manner in which Francophone national history teachers put this strategy into practice. In bringing research on their social…

Epistemic beliefs are deeply held convictions about the nature of knowledge, knowing, and learning. In this study, approximately 500 ninth and tenth-grade physical education (PE) students completed fitness-specific measures assessing their epistemic beliefs in the simplicity and stability of knowledge and the speed of its acquisition along with…

This study was based on the hypothesis that students' epistemological beliefs could become more expertlike with a combination of appropriate instructional activities: (i) preclass reading with metacognitive reflection, and (ii) in-class active learning that produces cognitive dissonance. This hypothesis was tested through a five-year study…

Reports on a study of 198 Canadian children, ages 4-8, on their understanding of the role of evidence on the formation of beliefs. Finds that younger children evaluate opinions based on their own beliefs about the situation; older children tend to ascribe knowledge to others on the basis of evidence available to those others. (CFR)

A sample of grade 11 and 12 Canadian students (n>2000) responded to a national survey concerning the epistemology of science. Results revealed preconceptions held by students involving the nature of science, scientific assumptions, values in science, conceptual inventions, the scientific method, consensus making in science, and characteristics…

This paper makes a critical exploration into the core epistemological assumptions of mainstream television effects research and explains why the mainstream study of the cognitive impact of television on children suffers from two reductionist tendencies, i.e., television is understood by most researchers to be solely a technical medium, and most…