An Investigation of the Relation between Pre-service EFL Teachers’ Epistemological Cognition and Teaching Approaches

Abstract

This study was undertaken to investigate the relation between pre-service EFL teachers’ epistemological beliefs and their approaches to teaching. The participants are 105 pre-service EFL teachers, selected based on a random sampling method. To measure pre-service EFL teachers’ epistemological beliefs, The Epistemological Beliefs Survey, developed by Chan and Eliott (2004), was used. This survey conceptualizes epistemological beliefs under four dimensions; namely “innate/fixed ability, learning effort/process, authority/expert knowledge, and certainty knowledge.” To measure, pre-service EFL teachers’ approaches to teaching, the Approaches to Teaching Inventory, developed by Trigwell, Prosser, and Ginns (2005), was utilized. This tool has three major subdimensions; “transmission-based, student-teacher interaction, and student focus.” Descriptive and correlational statistical analyses were used. The results indicated that pre-service EFL teachers moderately agree with the sub-dimensions of epistemological beliefs and the most important sub-dimension that predict teaching approaches is the effort dimension of epistemological beliefs.