Purpose: The aim of this study was to shed some light on the extent to which digital literacy, epistemological belief and reading motivation and engagement predict pre-service teachers' capabilities in teaching 21st century skills. Design/methodology/approach: 21st Century Skills Teaching Scale, Internet based Epistemological Beliefs Scale,…

Writing teachers play an extraordinarily important role in their students' writing development. Teachers' motivational beliefs, such as attitudes toward writing, perceptions of their efficacy to teach writing, or preparation to use evidence-based instructional practices, impact their writing instruction, which directly affects the advancement of…

Background: Further developing students' thinking about knowledge and knowing in science (epistemic beliefs) is considered a normative goal of science education in many countries around the world, even for elementary-school-aged children. Aims: The goal of the present study was to introduce and evaluate a new intervention in science education…

Various inquiry approaches have been promoted in science classrooms as a way for students to engage in, and have a deeper understanding of scientific discourse. However, there is a paucity of empirical evidence to suggest how children's actions and engagement in these approaches, or "practical epistemologies" (Sandoval, Science Education…

Research shows that the beliefs individuals hold about knowledge and knowing (epistemic beliefs) influence learning approaches and outcomes. However, little is known about the nature of children's epistemic beliefs and how best to measure these. In this pilot study, 11 Australian children (in Grade 4 or Grade 6) were asked to "draw, write and…

Scientific reasoning abilities are already developing in elementary-school-aged children and enable them to understand the world around them. The goal of the current study was to develop a new instrument for 8- to 10-year-old children in Grades 3 and 4 to measure their understanding of the steps of the "scientific inquiry cycle" (SIC).…

Reading is a complex act mediated by cognitive and sociocultural constructs that include classroom discourse and personal epistemology. This study explored the epistemic beliefs underpinning the discourse of four third-grade, male struggling readers and sought to understand how these beliefs unfolded during the critical-analytic reading…

The current study examines the personal epistemology of fourth-grade elementary school teachers from Germany (n = 10) and the United States (n = 10) to gain a more nuanced understanding of teachers' beliefs about knowledge and knowing through a cross-cultural lens. Analyses of semi-structured interviews reveal similarities and differences in the…