The present study aimed at validating the Persian versions of epistemological beliefs scale among Iranian EFL learners. Epistemological beliefs questionnaire (EBQ) designed and validated by Chan and Elliot (2004) includes 30 items and employs a 5-point Likert scale which measure students' epistemological beliefs. On this scale, there are four dimensions: 1) ‚Innate/Fixed Ability‛ which refers to ability being innate and fixed, 2) ‚Learning Effort/Process‛ referring to hard work, and effort spent in drilling, 3)‚Authority/Expert Knowledge‛ concerning knowledge being handed down by authority figures and experts, and 4) ‚Certainty Knowledge‛ denoting whether knowledge is certain, permanent, and unchanged. The present study also set out to investigate whether these epistemological beliefs vary by learner's gender, Grade point average (GPA) and contextual factor. To do so, 206 EFL learners were selected according to convenience sampling among EFL learners in language institutes and universities in Mashhad, a city in northeast of Iran. The results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) verified the validity and reliability of the translated versions of scale in Iranian context. It was also found that these epistemological beliefs vary by GPA not by gender and contextual factor.

The purpose of the present research is to uncover relationship between English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students' speaking score achievement and their epistemic beliefs. To this end, 63 Indonesian EFL students completed two different instruments, namely EFL epistemic beliefs questionnaire and final test of Intensive Speaking course. The results of Pearson Product Moment Correlation demonstrated that speaking achievement is significantly correlated with epistemic beliefs adapted from Emaliana (2017), consisting seven sub dimensions, namely, fix ability, certain knowledge, simple knowledge, omniscient authority, learning and communication strategies, foreign language aptitude, and motivation and expectation. Likewise, the findings manifested that sophisticated students who are indicated by high level of epistemic beliefs outperform simple students, who are otherwise having low level of epistemic beliefs. This research holds significant implications for curriculum, teaching and ...

The aim of this study is to investigate the epistemological beliefs of university students according to their genders, classes, fields of Study, academic success and learning styles. This study was carried out with 246 females and 242 males, in total 488 university students. The data was collected through Epistemological Beliefs Questionnaire (EBQ), Kolb Learning Style Inventory (KLSI) and Personal Information Form. According to the findings, the epistemological beliefs do not differ depending on the gender of the students. According to the grade levels, it was found out that two beliefs, one of which is that “Learning depends on the effort” and the other one is that “There is one unchanging truth”, differ. However; the belief concerning that “learning depends on ability” does not differ. It was seen that the common interaction between the gender and the grade level did not differ significantly in the sub-dimensions of the beliefs concerning that “learning depends on effort” and of the beliefs concerning that “learning depends on ability; whereas it differs meaningfully in the sub-dimension of the beliefs that “There is one unchanging truth”. Results showed that the males in the second grade believed that there is more than one unchanging truth. It was realized that the epistemological beliefs of the students differ according to their fields of study; however, they do not differ according to the common effect of the academic success and the field of Study. It was understood that the students from the field of social sciences in the sub-dimension of the belief concerning that “learning depends on effort”; the students from the field of health in the sub-dimension of the belief concerning that “learning depends on ability”; the students from the field of science-techniques were more developed/mature in the sub-dimension of the belief concerning that “There is one unchanging truth”. It was determined that a great majority of university students have “Assimilating” and “Converging” learning styles. It was seen that there is not a meaningful difference in the sub-dimension of the beliefs concerning that “learning depends on effort” in terms of different learning styles. On the other hand, it was realized that there is a meaningful difference in the sub-dimensions of the beliefs concerning that “learning depends on ability” and of the beliefs that “There is one unchanging truth” in favour of the students who have “Diverging” learning styles. It was suggested for the further studies to investigate the epistemological beliefs of the university instructors and the personal characteristics (locus of control, learned helplessness) of the students.

This study aimed to examine dimensionality in language learners’ epistemic beliefs. To achieve this, a survey was conducted using a newly-developed research instrument-“Language Learners’ Epistemic Beliefs” (LLEB) questionnaire. Based on a review of literature, it was proposed that language learners’ epistemic beliefs would cluster in three dimensions: (1) the nature of knowledge, (2) the authority to knowledge, and (3) the process of gaining linguistic knowledge. The data for this study were collected from 23 students majoring in languages and linguistics in a large Malaysian public university. Exploratory factor analysis of the data uncovered five latent dimensions in the students’ personal epistemologies. They were named “Authority to knowledge”, “Nature of knowledge”, “Concentration”, “Hard work”, and “Effort”. These findings did not refute the proposed conceptualization of language learners’ personal epistemologies as measured by the LLEB questionnaire. However, they revealed that discipline-specific epistemologies may have more complex structures. For example, an important finding was that the beliefs pertaining to the process of learning, which are considered as ‘peripheral’ to the function of personal epistemologies by some researchers, occupied a distinct and prominent position in the language learners’ personal epistemologies.

Epistemological beliefs are beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowing. The purpose of this paper is to examine the different educational programs (English teacher education, computer technology teacher education, and food technology) in terms of epistemological beliefs and to reveal the epistemological beliefs of fresh graduates studying these programs in Turkey and from different educational backgrounds. The interview questions used in this study focused on the source of knowledge, nature of knowledge, and elements in acquiring knowledge. The results revealed that prospective English teachers had relatively sophisticated ideas and the prospective food technologists had relatively naive ideas on each dimension of epistemological beliefs. Computer technology teachers had medium epistemological beliefs. This could be because English teacher education programs focus more on the students' epistemological beliefs, whereas food technologist programs focus more on the subject r...

Unlike teacher beliefs, there has been a dearth of study regarding EFL learner beliefs. The reason can be that Horwitz (1987) and the existing literature has predominantly been in an ESL context. The present study reports the development and validation of a scale to measure the learner beliefs about language learning in Iranian EFL contexts. Using a combination of verbal creativity method, interview-based method, and previously-established questionnaires to draw up the item pool for the scale, a 45-item scale was finally developed. It was administered to 319 randomly-selected students studying English at Islamic Azad University Roudehen Branch. The internal consistency was calculated to be 0.78 through Cronbach's Alpha Formula. The results of factor analysis yielded five factors with 33 items: mediatory beliefs, self-beliefs, attributive beliefs, traditional beliefs, and epistemological beliefs. Results indicated that self-belief among others is the strongest dimension of belief...