Investigating Girl and Boy High School Students’ Epistemological Beliefs in Biology and Physics

Abstract

Epistemological beliefs are associated with students' motivation, learning strategies, career choices, and academic achievement. The study aimed at examining the epistemological beliefs of high school students in physics and biology. A total of 503 high school students studying at five schools in the Aegean Region in Turkiye participated in the study. The 5-point Likert-type Epistemological Beliefs Scale and the previous semester’s grade were used as data sources in physics and biology. Repeated ANOVAs were used to address the research questions. ANOVA results showed that the students had higher scores than the biology course against the physics course in the sub-dimension of the source of knowledge, the certainty of knowledge and the justification of knowledge. The results of this study are important in terms of teaching physics and biology lessons and reveal that students’ ideas about scientific knowledge for different course branches are different, and this difference exists in the early years of high school.

Keywords

• Biology education
• Epistemological beliefs
• Gender
• Physics education

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