Epistemic climate and epistemic change: Instruction designed to change students' beliefs and learning strategies and improve achievement.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of an intervention designed to foster epistemic change over the course of 1 semester. The intervention was based on constructivist teaching practices that incorporated teacher modeling of critical thinking of content, evaluation of multiple approaches to solving problems, and making connections to prior knowledge. Sixty-three students across 2 classrooms (one intervention [n = 31], one control [n = 32]) participated and completed questionnaires 5 times over the semester. Questionnaires measured students' epistemic beliefs, learning strategies, and levels of motivation for their statistics class. Results revealed that for students in the intervention class, their epistemic beliefs shifted midway through the semester, whereas students in the control group maintained a consistent level of beliefs throughout the semester. Intervention students' self-reported use of critical thinking and elaboration strategies also significantly increased midway through the semester, as did their levels of self-efficacy for learning statistics. In contrast, students in the control group maintained a consistent level of strategy use and self-efficacy. Finally, students in the intervention group had a significantly higher final grade compared with those in the control group.