Changes in primary school teachers’ beliefs about knowing : a longitudinal study

Abstract

A teaching program designed to facilitate the reflection on and development of more sophisticated epistemological beliefs was implemented with 29 pre-service graduate teacher education students at a large metropolitan university in Australia in 1997. As part of the year-long teaching program, students were required to reflect in journal entries on the content of an educational psychology unit in relation to their epistemological beliefs. The students engaged in this teaching program were interviewed in relation to their beliefs about knowing at the beginning (Interview 1) and conclusion (Interview 2) of the teaching program. Eleven participants were then interviewed again (Interview 3) in their third year of teaching. The results of the qualitative data analysis of all three interviews indicated that, over time, seven participants became more constructivist in their beliefs about knowing, two maintained the same beliefs, while two described less constructivist beliefs. Implications for teaching are discussed.