The relationship between the epistemological beliefs, science learning approaches and scientific inquiry skills: a path analysis

Abstract

ABSTRACT Research has shown significant relationships between students’ epistemological beliefs and their approaches to learning. This study aimed to investigate the relationships between the scientific epistemological beliefs, science learning approaches, and the scientific inquiry skills of undergraduate students who took science courses by expanding the findings of the studies in the literature. Participants were 437 undergraduate students studying in the departments of science courses in Turkey. The participants responded to the Epistemological Beliefs Scale, the Learning Approach Questionnaire, and the Scientific Inquiry Scale. The epistemological beliefs scale consisted of three dimensions: learning depends on effort, learning depends on skills, and a single truth. The learning approaches scale consisted of two dimensions: deep and surface approaches. Path analysis results showed that there are some important relationships between scientific epistemological beliefs and science learning approaches and scientific inquiry skills. Learning depending on an effort positively predicted scientific inquiry and a deep learning approach. Beliefs about the justification of scientific knowledge seemed to positively contribute to deep strategies. Learning depending on the skills was negatively predicted by scientific inquiry. The single truth was positively associated with the surface learning approach.