Relationship between Prospective Teachers’ Epistemological Beliefs and their Conceptions about Teaching and Learning

Abstract

Epistemological belief is the process about knowledge acquisition and the nature of information. These beliefs shape the concepts regarding teaching and learning. It eventually influenced the strategies of instructions and its quality in the classroom. The main purpose of this quantitative study was to find out the relationship between prospective teachers’ epistemological beliefs and their conceptions about teaching and learning. Data were collected from 759 Prospective teachers of two public universities by using stratified proportionate random sampling technique. Findings of theCorrelational research study revealed that there was significance moderate positive correlation between prospective teachers’ epistemological beliefs and their conceptions about teaching and
learning.Findings further concluded that male and female prospective teachers have significant difference regarding conceptions of teaching and learning. It is recommended that the teacher educators may engage prospective teachers in understanding in depth the epistemological beliefs and its different dimensions and have clarified their conceptions regarding teaching and learning