Conceptions of Knowledge Across Contexts: Making New Sense of Teachers' Epistemic Beliefs

• In Event: Epistemic Responsibility and Sense-Making With Multiple Epistemologies in Social Studies Education

Abstract

Objective
How might multiple yet conflicting teacher candidates’ (TCs’) epistemic beliefs (conceptions regarding the nature of knowledge and the processes of knowing) change our work as social studies teacher educators? Previous studies have linked TCs’ epistemic beliefs (EBs) to their levels of understanding, adoption of goal orientations and perspective-taking, disciplinary anxiety, and self-regulated learning strategies (e.g. Hofer, 2008; Schommer-Aikins & Easter, 2016). Yet how contextual realities might impact TCs’ developing EBs receive less attention in social studies education (Sosu & Gray, 2012). This quantitative study explores and demonstrates how TCs from two different contexts, Nigeria and the United States, exude multiple epistemologies, highlighting how a conception of reality may reify epistemic hegemony and impact social studies teacher education across contexts.

Theoretical Perspectives
Teachers’ epistemic beliefs affect their cognitive flexibility, orientation to teaching, teaching competence, and implementation of instruction (e.g. Cheng, et al., 2009; Schommer-Aikins & Easter, 2016; Sosu & Gray, 2012). TCs experience intense shifts in EBs, which vary by contexts (e.g. Chang & Elliot, 2004; Tanase & Wang, 2010). Research and teaching ideas considered best practices in U.S. social studies, however, portray universal epistemology (e.g. Busey, 2018; Ellis & Haar, 2007). Little is known about how contextual realities may impact multiple epistemologies reflected in social studies’ TCs epistemic beliefs as they learn to teach (Huang et al., 2019; Sosu & Gray, 2012). This provides the need to explore epistemic belief structures shaping practice in social studies education and different contexts.

Data Sources and Methods
As part of a larger two-year study conducted between 2018 and 2020, this quantitative study used a 63-item Schommer’s Epistemological Beliefs Questionnaire to evaluate/assess TCs’ conception of knowledge and knowing. Participants included 1,009 full-time Nigerian teacher education students at two public institutions in southwestern Nigeria. The participants completed the questionnaire through the paper-pencil approach. Using item-wise exploratory factor analysis (EFA), we created a profile of Nigerian social studies TCs’ EBs and compared it to their U.S. counterparts.

Results
The EFA analysis reveals that Nigerian social studies TCs believe that knowledge is certain, not constantly evolving. They alluded that knowledge is innate and fixed, rather than acquired by experience. Additionally, the organization of knowledge is compartmentalized, and such knowledge is handed down by a superior authority. They further indicated that knowledge and knowing exist and their acquisition is gradual and requires effort. The profile of their U.S. counterparts’ epistemic beliefs, however, indicated some contrast.

Scholarship Significance
This study highlights how specific framing of knowledge shaping practices in social studies education may reify epistemic hegemony. It emphasizes the need to embrace a cultural embedding of knowledge that promotes multiple forms of sense-making in social studies teacher education across contexts. This research illuminates how deeply held EBs may interact with TCs’ developing capacity for effective differentiated classroom practices, especially the instruction and learning assessment of increasingly diverse students in our schools.

Authors

• O. Matthew Odebiyi, St Cloud State University

• Youn-Jeng Choi, Ewha Womans University