Abstract

Educational psychologists have become increasingly interested in students’ beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowing. Although initial researchers accounted epistemology as an area of philosophy, a proliferation of research has found the importance of students’ epistemic development to learning. Over the last decade, numerous studies focused on what epistemological beliefs are and how the beliefs develop, but few studies implemented teaching programs to change students’ epistemological beliefs, especially young students. This article proposed a teaching program for junior high school students to change their epistemological beliefs, and then examined the effect of the teaching program on students’ epistemological beliefs and learning characteristics. The participants were 7th graders (N=105) divided into an experimental group (N=52) and a contrast group (N=53) with original classes. The quasi-experimental design was applied and the observed data were subjected to the multivariate analysis of variance. The results showed that the teaching program was helpful in improving students’ epistemological beliefs and learning.