for e-Book ONLY!) Researchers usually work and evolve in the scientific frameworks in which they were trained, without questioning their epistemological foundations. However, this may be required when researchers coming from different disciplines and paradigms try to work together on the same object of study. This chapter reflects on epistemological encounters in a five-year project of multidis...

The aim of this study was to modeling structural relationship between epistemological beliefs qualities of school life with academic achievement. Correlation research was based on the structural equation modeling technique, specifically regression equations (combining path analysis and factor analysis of the second level). The statistical population consisted of all boys of the first year of se...

This paper presents a study assessing first-year students’ engineering epistemological beliefs or beliefs about engineering knowledge and knowing. A small cohort of first-year engineering students pilot tested a new quantitative instrument called the Epistemological Beliefs Assessment for Engineering (EBAE). Student responses to the EBAE were used to validate the instrument and analyze the epis...

A mixed-method exploratory approach was employed to examine the relationship between epistemological beliefs and quality of thinking when participants first thought about an ill-structured problem alone, and then with another person in a dyad. The results showed that there was not a systematic connection between epistemological beliefs and ill-structured problem solving in either solo or paired...

This study explores the relationship between undergraduates’ epistemological beliefs and their information-seeking behavior. Kuhlthau’s information search process (ISP) model and four models of epistemological development from educational psychology formed the theoretical foundation of this investigation. Twenty undergraduates attending an Ivy League university were interviewed about their sear...

The present study investigates the combination of an epistemological sensitization and two different critical thinking instructions, i.e., general infusion approach, in context change induced by presentation resolvable scientific controversies. In a randomized study, we tested hypothesis that controversies generally reduces absolutism multiplicism increases evaluativism. We assume these effects...

Cross-cultural research is marked by adopting one of two dominant epistemological paradigms: positivism or constructivism. By discussing strengths/weaknesses inherent in each paradigm, this paper argues that rather than contradictory and incommensurable; positivism and constructivism can be considered complementary epistemological orientations which correspond to two conceptual levels of cultur...