Domain Specificity of Teachers' Epistemological Beliefs About Academic Knowledge

• Other Authors: Lafrazza, Gina (authoraut)
• Format: Others
• Language: English; English
• Published: Florida State University
• Subjects: Education
• Online Access: http://purl.flvc.org/fsu/fd/FSU_migr_etd-3318

Epistemological beliefs are defined as beliefs about the nature of knowledge. This includes dimensions such as certainty of knowledge, what knowledge encompasses, how knowledge is transferred, and who holds knowledge. To date, most of the research on epistemological beliefs has been on students, primarily undergraduates of various majors (e.g., Buehl & Alexander, 2001, 2004; Buehl, Alexander & Murphy, 2002; Fives & Buehl, 2004). There is a distinct void in this literature with respect to the epistemological beliefs of post college adults, specifically teachers (Fives & Buehl, 2004). This investigation used a sample of 22 elementary general education teachers, 32 secondary level science teachers and 19 secondary level social studies teachers. Specifically, the study addressed the following: (1) Are teachers' beliefs about academic knowledge general across academic domains or specific with regard to academic domain? (2) Is the grade level (elementary versus secondary) that a teacher teaches correlated with the level of sophistication of beliefs and degree of domain specificity about academic knowledge? (3) Are beliefs held by science teachers about science different (more or less sophisticated) than those of social studies teachers? Conversely, are beliefs held by science teachers about social studies different (more or less sophisticated) than those of social studies teachers? Results indicate that similar to undergraduate populations, teachers hold general knowledge beliefs that form the basis for domain specific beliefs that become salient during certain contexts. Additionally, secondary teachers in this sample held more sophisticated epistemological views than did the elementary teachers and discussion provides suggestions for further research to investigate possible reasons for this difference. Lastly, the results from this sample suggest that a secondary teacher's beliefs about his/her own field will be more sophisticated than his/her beliefs about other fields. === A Thesis submitted to the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. === Spring Semester, 2005. === March 30, 2005. === Knowledge Beliefs, Teacher Beliefs, Epistemology, Domain Specificity === Includes bibliographical references. === Alysia Roehrig, Professor Directing Thesis; Sherry Southerland, Outside Committee Member; Marcy Driscoll, Committee Member.