Topic-Specific Knowledge Nodes: The Codevelopment of Topic Knowledge and Topic-Specific Epistemologies in a Traditionally Organized University Course

• In Event: 16.059 - Poster Session 2
  In Poster Session: 16.059-4 - Student and Teacher Views on Learning Environments

Abstract

There are close relationships between epistemologies and knowledge. Existing literature shows that these relationships exist at three levels: domain-general, domain-specific and topic-specific. We investigate the relationships between topic-knowledge and topic-specific epistemologies in this study. In addition, we longitudinally scrutinize the impacts of a traditionally organized university course (Environmental Science) on these relationships. We develop the environmental-topic knowledge test and the environmental-topic epistemologies questionnaire. We administer them three times (before, in the middle and at the end) to 96 preservice science teachers taking Environmental Science course. The results show that there are dynamic, reciprocal relationships between topic-knowledge and topic-epistemologies. The course design may influence these relationships. Moreover, topic-knowledge and topic-epistemologies may constitute a topic-specific knowledge node that may vary across topics.

Authors

• Ahmet Kilinc, Uludag University

• Eralp Bahcivan, Abant Izzet Baysal University

• Ozkan Gorgulu, Ahi Evran Üniversitesi