Date

2008

Author

Özkan, Şule

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This study aimed to explore the relationships between elementary students’ epistemological beliefs, learning approaches, self-regulated learning strategies, and their science achievement. In this investigation, a model of the potential associations among these variables was proposed and tested by using structural equation modeling. It was hypothesized that (a) students’ epistemological beliefs would directly influence their learning approaches, self-regulated learning strategies, and science achievement, (b) students’ adopted learning approaches and their use of self-regulated learning strategies would be related with science achievement, and (c) students’ learning approaches were expected to be related with their use of self-regulated strategies. A total of 1240 seventh graders from 21 public elementary schools throughout the Çankaya district of Ankara completed measures designed to assess students’ (a) epistemological beliefs (beliefs about the Certainty of Knowledge, Development of Knowledge, Source of Knowing, and Justification for Knowing) (b) adopted learning approaches (either rote or meaningful), (c) use of self-regulated learning strategies, and (d) science achievement. Separate confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to determine the structure of students’ epistemological beliefs and their adopted learning approaches. While the factor analyses of students’ responses to the epistemological beliefs questionnaire supported the multidimensional nature of these beliefs, some features distinct from the findings of the Western countries were identified. Socio-cultural influences were proposed to account for the observed differences in the factor structure obtained with the Turkish sample. The results of the structural equation modeling while supporting some of the proposed hypotheses, contradicted with others. Epistemological beliefs emerged as a major contributor to learning approaches and science achievement as expected, whereas those beliefs can not be used as a predictor of self-regulated learning strategies. In addition, students’ adopted learning approaches were found to be a predictor of their self-regulated learning strategies which in turn influence the science achievement in the model. Contrary to the expectations, learning approaches of the students were not found to be directly related with their science achievement.

Subject Keywords

Secondary Education., Teaching (Principles and Practices).

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/2/12610168/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/17977

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis