Gender differences in high school students’ interests in physics

Epistemological beliefs refer to beliefs about origin, justification, methods, nature, limits of knowledge and characteristics of knowledge acquisition (Hofer, 2002; Schommer-Aikins, 2002). For years, researchers tried to understand the concept of epistemological belief with the questions of “what is knowledge?”, “how knowledge is acquired?”, “what is the source of knowledge?”, “what is the structure of knowledge?”, “what are the limits of knowledge?” etc. As the pioneer of these endeavors, Perry (1968) observed undergraduate students for framing a definition of personal epistemological belief. After his longitudinal study, Perry (1968) presented a model that includes personal developmental stages in a single dimension to define personal epistemological belief (Moore, 2002). In the history of models for explaining epistemological beliefs (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger & Tarule, 1986, Baxter Magolda, 1992; King & Kitchener, 1994), developmental models accepting epistemological beliefs as gradually developing and associated beliefs were common up to model of Schommer (1994). According to Schomer (1990), a multidimensional model is more sufficient for the nature of complex knowledge. So Schommer (1994) defined epistemological beliefs as a multidimensional system of partially independent beliefs including five dimensions; speed of knowledge acquisition, tentativeness of knowledge, structure of knowledge, source of knowledge and control over knowledge acquisition. Tentativeness of knowledge refers to beliefs about changeability of knowledge while structure of knowledge involves beliefs about accepting knowledge with isolated parts vs. interrelated concepts. Source of knowledge refers to beliefs about authority as knowledge owner vs. individual as knowledge producer while speed of knowledge acquisition refers to beliefs about learning as a gradual process vs. quick process. Control over knowledge acquisition involves beliefs about learning ability as an unchangeable vs. improvable characteristics (Schommer 1994; Hofer, 2001). Previous studies associated sophisticated epistemological beliefs with belief in complex and tentive knowledge, no immediate learning, improvable learning ability and self-generated sources of knowledge production (Olafson & Schraw, 2006; Schommer, 1994). The studies using Schommer (1994) model as a framework showed that epistemological beliefs of students had direct and indirect effects on learning (Schommer-Aikins, 2002; Topcu & Yilmaz-Tuzun, 2008). Indirectly it was shown that individuals’ epistemological beliefs predicted significantly their conceptions about learning (Chan, 2011). Further, epistemological beliefs were examined by considering their relations to other factors and it was shown that epistemological beliefs of students were associated with their academic performance (Cano, 2005), academic achievement (Lodewyk, 2007), goal orientation (Phan, 2008), information processing levels (Schreiber & Shinn, 2003), test anxiety and task value (Paulsen & Feldman, 1999). In science domain, these beliefs also were shown to be associated with attitudes toward science (Fulmer, 2014) and science achievement (Topcu & Yilmaz-Tuzun, 2008). Moreover, studies showed that epistemological beliefs of students predicted self-regulated learning of students (Braten & Stromso, 2005; Metallidou, 2013; Köksal &Yaman, 2012). According to study results of Karimi and Atai (2014), epistemological beliefs of students were associated with comprehension of texts. Similarly Mateos, Sole, Castells and Lamas (2014) pointed out the epistemological beliefs of university students were associated with their comprehension of texts about nuclear energy. Chan, Ho and Ku (2011) investigated relationship between epistemological beliefs and critical thinking of 111 undergraduate students. Their findings addressed that students believing unchangeable knowledge represented lower degree of two-sided thinking and poor performance in evaluating counterarguments.

Association of epistemological beliefs with learning might change across domains of learning such as psychology or science (Hofer, 2000). Hofer (2000) criticized Schommer (1990)’s Model that the model is about general epistemological beliefs and it is not an appropriate model to explain domain-specific epistemological beliefs. Hofer (2000) reported that students in her study accepted knowledge in science as more certain than knowledge in psychology. Hofer (2006) also added that determining epistemological beliefs by using domain-general instruments is not sensitive to domain-specific aspects of epistemological beliefs. In disciplinary level, Tsai (2006) studied with 428 high school students and the author found that students accepted biology knowledge as more tentative than physics knowledge. Topcu (2013) also investigated disciplinary differences in terms of epistemological beliefs and the author addressed that pre-service teachers have different epistemological beliefs about chemistry and biology in terms of tentativeness of knowledge and source of knowledge. Buehl, Alexander and Murphy (2002) investigated difference in domain-specific epistemological beliefs and they reached the finding that college students believed learning mathematics necessitates more effort than learning history. By considering domain-specific nature of epistemological beliefs, some researchers investigated science-specific epistemological beliefs of students (Ozkal, Tekkaya, Sungur, Cakıroglu & Cakıroglu, 2011; Liang & Tsai, 2010; Wu & Tsai, 2011; Liang, Lee & Tsai, 2010). Science-specific epistemological beliefs refer to beliefs about origin, justification, methods, nature, limits of scientific knowledge and characteristics of science knowledge acquisition. In terms of learning and teaching science, teachers’ and prospective science teachers’ scientific epistemological beliefs have an important place due to their beliefs effect on their actions. Jones and Carter (2006) addressed that epistemological beliefs of teachers influence their classroom practices while Schraw and Olafson (2002) said that epistemological beliefs of teachers is associated with their tendency to select a teaching method. Moreover, Hammer, Elby, Scherr and Redish (2005) pointed out effect of epistemological beliefs of teachers on their construction of learning environment. Similar situations are also valid for prospective teachers. Boz and Boz (2014) found that epistemological beliefs of prospective teachers have a relationship with their teaching concerns. Taskın Sahin (2012) determined that epistemological beliefs of prospective teachers predicted their approaches to learning. In addition Erdamar and Alpan (2013) found that epistemological beliefs of prospective teachers affected their teaching practice and problem solving skills. As seen from the literature, epistemological beliefs of prospective teachers have associations with their learning and teaching. However there is a need to investigate epistemological beliefs of prospective teachers and their association of different variables in terms of domain-specific epistemological beliefs. Especially science as a domain of learning should be investigated due to epistemological status of science knowledge understood by people. Hofer (2000) stated science knowledge is accepted as more certain than other knowledge types and domain-general measurements are not enough to explain these beliefs. Moreover Schraw (2001) addressed that domain-specific epistemological beliefs have a predominant role in task-specific learning. Liu and Tsai (2008) suggested a more contextualized assessment of scientific epistemological beliefs. Hence determining science-specific epistemological beliefs of prospective science teachers by using science-specific instruments has importance in terms of explaining their epistemological beliefs, learning and approaches to teaching.

For measuring science-specific beliefs various ways of measurement were used up to now (Pomeroy, 1993; Rubba & Anderson, 1978; Stathopoulou & Vosniadou, 2007; Conley, Pintrich, Vekiri & Harrison, 2004; Tsai & Liu, 2005). However there is limited number of measurement instruments or ways for science-specific epistemological beliefs of prospective teachers (Brauer &Wilde, 2014; Topcu, 2013; Guven, Sulun & Cam, 2014). Brauer and Wilde (2014) developed a scale with 5-point Likert type items while Topcu (2013) used a scale and interview to determine science-specific epistemological beliefs of prospective teachers. In another study, Guven, Sulun and Cam (2014) used reflective diaries and open-ended questionnaire to investigate science-specific epistemological beliefs of prospective teachers. However none of them include components to increase attention to the items and to situate the items. But content-embedded items increase attention to the items due to stimulus provided by the description. Also embedding items into a scientific text contextualizes and situates the items (Drechsel , Carstensen & Prenzel, 2011). Content-embedded items involve a short description of the scientific phenomena discovered by the scientists and then the items are represented by relating them to the beginning description. The contents flow provide readers to inquire process of the scientific knowledge acquisition of the scientist and so this provides making decisions about their personal scientific epistemological belief based on the context. Therefore the purpose of this study is to develop an instrument with content-embedded items for determining science-specific epistemological beliefs of prospective science teachers.