Epistemological Beliefs Questionnaire

Draft

Introduction

The Epistemological Beliefs Questionnaire has been developed to measure teachers' and students' belief about knowledge and its acquisition.

See also:

• educational belief
• Teaching and learning conceptions questionnaire (TLCQ)

Chang and Elliott 2004

“Four epistemological belief and two teaching and learning conception dimensions were identified from a survey study of a sample of Hong Kong teacher education students. The epistemological belief dimensions were labeled Innate/Fixed Ability, Learning Effort/Process, Authority/Expert Knowledge and Certainty Knowledge. [..] The two teaching and learning conceptions were labelled Traditional and Constructivist Conceptions.” .

Questionnaire development is described in Chan and Elliott (2002).

Below are sample items of the epistemological beliefs questionnaire.

Dimensions	Items
Innate/Fixed Ability	There isn’t much you can do to make yourself smarter as your ability is fixed at birth One's innate ability limits what one can learn.
Learning Effort/Process	If people can’t understand something right away, they should keep on trying. Knowing how to learn is more important than the acquired facts.
Authority/Expert Knowledge	Sometimes, I don’t believe the facts in textbooks written by authorities. Even advice from experts should often be questioned.
Certainty Knowledge	Scientists will ultimately get to the truth if they keep searching for it. Scientific knowledge is certain and does not change.

Chai et al. 2006

Chai et al. (2006) adapted an instrument developed by Chan and Elliott’s (2004) study. The latter was from Schommer’s larger 63-item questionnaire on various epistemological dimensions. This modified EBQ version “covers four dimensions, labelled as Innate/Fixed Ability, LearningEffort/Process, Authority/Expert Knowledge and Certainty of Knowledge” (Chai et al, 2006:291):

Dimensions	Sample items
Innate/Fixed Ability (INFIX)	● Students who begin school with average ability remain average ● Our ability to learn is fixed at birth
Learning Effort/Process (LEP)	● Understanding course materials and thinking process are more important than acquiring knowledge/facts ● Knowing how to learn is more important than the acquired facts
Authority/Expert Knowledge (AEK)	● I still believe in what the experts say even though it differs from what I know ● I have no doubt in whatever the expert says
Certainty of Knowledge (CK)	● Scientific knowledge is certain and does not change ● If scientists try hard enough, they can find the truth to almost anything

Bibliography and references

Bibliography

• Chai, C. S., Khine, M. S., & Teo, T. (2006). Epistemological beliefs on teaching and learning: a survey among pre‐service teachers in Singapore. Educational Media International, 43(4), 285–298. http://doi.org/10.1080/09523980600926242

• Chan, K. W. & Elliott, R. G. (2002) Exploratory study of Hong Kong teacher education students’ epistemolog-ical beliefs: cultural perspectives and implications on beliefs research,Contemporary Educational Psychology,27(3), 392–414.

• Schommer, M. (1990) Effects of beliefs about the nature of knowledge on comprehension, Journal of Educational Psychology, 82 (3), 498–504