Relation of Value Epistemological Beliefs Scale and Judgments of Two Similar Scenarios Attributed to Two Different Authorities

Abstract

Authority, in learning situations, has been widely defined as the role of teacher, or parents, ignoring the person by whom knowledge is delivered. This research was carried out to examine the influence of this type of authority on the relations between students' beliefs and their judgments of content. 160 Iranian college students were randomly divided into two equal groups. Then, both groups were assessed for their beliefs about sources of values. In the next step, two scenarios of the same content were distributed to the two groups; one scenario was attributed to a highly respected religious person in Islam and another to a famous nonreligious psychoanalyst. College students then were asked to judge the ideas proposed in the content. Analysis showed that the relations between students' beliefs and their judgments were different for the two groups. Pending confirmation by further study, some educational recommendations may be offered.