Examining Of Epistemological Beliefs Of Students In Science Education, Biology Education And Biology-Related Pedagogical Formation Course According To Some Variables

Year 2017, Volume: 4 Issue: 1, 236 - 243, 01.06.2016

Mehmet Yakışan , Şadiye Karaşah

Abstract

This study was performed in order to
examine the epistemological beliefs of students who study science education,
biology education and take the biology-related pedagogical formation course in
Ondokuz Mayıs University. In this study, In order to determine epistemological
beliefs of the students for this study that were conducted with a total of 107
students, including 32 from students of the fourth class science teacher, 41
from students of the fourth class biology teacher and 34 from the formation
training biology students studying in Ondokuz Mayıs University.

In this study, “The Epistemological
Beliefs Scale” was used with the aim of determine students’ epistemological
beliefs that was developed by Schommer (1990) and adopted in Turkish by
Deryakulu and Büyüköztürk (2005). The scale is a thirty five-point scale
consisting of three factors. The first studies on epistemological beliefs are
based on the examination of these beliefs in general as one-size. In this study
used as The Epistemological Beliefs Scale was adopted in Turkish by Deryakulu
and Büyüköztürk (2002) "The Belief of Learning Depends on Effort",
“The Belief of Learning Depends on Ability" and "The Belief of There
is Only One Unchanging Truth" consists of three factors. Research is a
descriptive study of college students’ by gender and departments,
epistemological beliefs in causal comparative models.

The data collected were analyzed with SPSS
21 program. The descriptive statistical methods were used to evaluate the data,
t-test and one-way analysis of variance (One-Way ANOVA) was calculated.
According to analysis the result of the demonstrated that there is no
statistically significant difference between students’ scientific
epistemological beliefs and their gender of all three factors. According to the
students’ departments, it was found out those two beliefs, one of which is that
"The Belief that Learning Depends on Effort" and the other one is
that “The Belief that Learning Depends on Ability", differ. However; the
belief concerning that "The Belief That There is Only One Unchanging
Truth" does not differ.

Keywords

epistemological beliefs, science education, biology education, epistemology

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