Conceptual Integration and Measurement of Epistemological and Ontological Beliefs in Educational Research

Abstract

This paper examines the conceptualization and measurement of epistemological and ontological phenomena and makes recommendations for improving the conceptual framework and methodological assessment of these phenomena. I discuss the ways educational researchers have studied beliefs and how this research can be improved through a comprehensive conceptual framework and better measurement. This paper provides definitions of epistemological and ontological beliefs and world views, discusses six complementary strategies for assessing these beliefs, compares the strengths of these strategies, and provides examples of how they have been used in the research literature. This paper discusses challenges related to the development of a comprehensive theoretical framework for beliefs, as well as ways to improve measurement of these beliefs and summarizes six emergent themes.

Investigating Student Teachers’ Conceptions of Social Studies through the Multi-dimensional Structure of the Epistemological Beliefs

“…Conversely, a number of other studies carried out on student teachers (Biçer et al, 2013;Deniz, 2014;Erol & Ercan, 2015;İçen et al, 2013;Meral & Çolak, 2009) found that one's year of study had no impact on her epistemological beliefs in the Certainty of Knowledge dimension. Although the findings of some studies disconfirm others, it has widely been accepted that variables like age, maturation, and educational attainment have a positive impact on the development of epistemological beliefs (Deryakulu, 2014;Schommer, 1998;Schraw, 2013;Youn, 2000).…”

Socialising Epistemic Cognition

“…Since its inception in developmental-stage terms (Perry, 1970) there has been concern to specify components of epistemic cognition (Hofer & Pintrich, 1997;Schommer, 1990), the domain specificity or generality of those beliefs (Hofer, 2006;Muis, Bendixen, & Haerle, 2006) and generally to develop conceptual models to characterize differing epistemic beliefs across contexts in terms of their sophistication. Additionally, some have argued that greater attention should be given to the distinction between epistemic and ontological cognition (Greene et al, 2008;Schraw, 2013), and more generally there have been calls for a philosophical approach to conceptualising epistemic cognition (Alexander, 2006;Chinn, Buckland, & Samarapungavan, 2011;Greene et al, 2008;Muis et al, 2006).…”

Desenvolvimento Epistemológico e Avaliação de Crenças Pessoais relativas ao Conhecimento e ao Processo de Conhecer: Estudo de Validação da Escala de Posicionamento Epistemológico para Estudantes de Doutoramento

“…De acordo com esta perspetiva, e segundo Schommer- Apesar do crescente interesse e da extensão da produção científica nestes domínios ao longo destas últimas quatro décadas muitos desafios permanecem por resolver. Desafios estes, que ao nível conceptual passam pela sistematização dos corpos teóricos e modelos propostos, passando inclusivamente por questões ligadas aos contextos culturais e própria conceção mais generalista ou mais específica a domínios do conhecimento ou contextos (Briell, Elen, Verschaffel, & Clarebout, 2011;Greene et al, 2008;Richardson, 2013;Schraw, 2013).…”

“…Questões como a validade dos constructos, a estabilidade das medidas ou a dispersão de instrumentos não comparados e relacionados entre si, acentuam a preocupação quanto à qualidade dos resultados quantitativos (Briell et al, 2011;Greene et al, 2008;Schraw, 2013;Stahl, 2011). No mesmo sentido, aparecem críti-cas às escalas construídas com respostas em escala de likert, que sistematicamente apresentam problemas nas análises fatoriais, com baixas variâncias explicadas e saturações fatoriais e baixo número de itens retidos por dimensão, assim como níveis reduzidos de consistência interna (DeBacker, Crowson, Beesley, Thoma, & Hestevold 2008;Hofer, 2000;Wood & Kardash, 2002).…”