This study investigated the types of elementary school students' coping strategies for anomalous situations in science classes. Their epistemological beliefs were then analyzed on the basis of types. To do this, the students (N=75) from 2 elementary schools were asked to respond to an open-ended question about their coping strategies on anomalous situations and some of them underwent in-depth interviews. The analyses of the results indicated five types of coping strategies and were identified as follows: Abandoning, asking a teacher for help, trying the experiment again with same methods, trying the experiments again with different methods, and trying the experiment again after actively analyzing the causes. Among these, the major types were 'trying the experiment again with same methods', 'trying the experiments again with different methods', and 'asking a teacher for help'. The five types were grouped again into four categories such as 'transferring facts', 'constructing facts', 'transferring meanings', and 'constructing meanings' on the basis of the epistemological beliefs toward knowledge and the epistemological beliefs toward relation. The results revealed that 'trying the experiment again after actively analyzing the causes' was only included in 'constructing facts' and the others were included in 'transferring facts'. Educational implications of these findings are discussed.
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