Modelling between epistemological beliefs and constructivist learning environment

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to model the relationship between pre-service chemistry teachers' epistemological beliefs and their preference to use constructivist-learning environment in their future class. The sample was 125 pre-service chemistry teachers from five universities in Turkey. Two instruments were used in this study. One of the instruments was constructivist-learning environment scale developed by Taylor, Fraser and Fisher. The other instrument was Epistemological Questionnaire (EQ) developed by Schommer. In order to analyse data, Structural Equation Modelling was conducted by using LISREL 8.7. The results provided evidence for the good fit of the hypothesised model. Pre-service chemistry teachers' epistemological belief scores were found to be correlated to their constructivist-learning environment scale scores with the value of .35. This study revealed that pre-service chemistry teachers with sophisticated epistemological beliefs favoured constructivist-learning environment in their future class.