Epistemological Beliefs in Classroom Learning Among Secondary School Students in Pakistan

Epistemological beliefs have relationship to different indicators of students' performance across different levels of education. The effect of domain of study and socio-cultural variables led to differences of epistemological beliefs in students. This study is conducted to explore the science related epistemological beliefs among traditional secondary school students in the district of Bahawalnagar, Punjab, Pakistan. 137 male students were involved in this study. The data was collected by using Epistemological Belief Questionnaire which measuring four dimensions of epistemological belief namely the knowledge certainty, knowledge development, omniscient authority, and knowledge justification. The result showed that in traditional Pakistani education system, nurturing naive and maladaptive epistemological beliefs in secondary school science students is omniscient. The different dimensions of students' science epistemological beliefs found to have direct and indirect effects on each other. Analysis of regression indicated the presence of negative relationship between students' naive knowledge certainty beliefs and examination marks pointing to inadequate socio-educational environment for development of sophisticated epistemological beliefs. It is concluded that the students' epistemological beliefs is important to student's learning. There is also indication showed that the beliefs can be developed through teaching and learning activities in the classroom which in turn affect the student's leaning performance. Several suggestions and recommendations are also presented.