A study of epistemological beliefs of EFL learners across gender and educational level

2014 IJRSP – Volume 3 Issue 3

Author/s:

Nayebi Limoodehi, Roya
Department of Foreign Languages, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Fars, Iran (nlroya@yahoo.com)

Tahriri, Abdorreza*
Faculty of Humanities, University of Guilan, Iran (atahriri@gmail.com)

Abstract:

The present study sought to investigate the impact of EFL learners’ educational level and gender on the five dimensions of their epistemological beliefs regarding structure of knowledge, stability of knowledge, source of knowledge, ability to learn and speed of learning. The participants who took part in the study were 101 EFL students studying English literature and English translation in the Islamic Azad University, Rasht Branch, Iran during the spring semester of 2013. They completed the Persian version of Epistemological Questionnaire (Schommer, 1990). The findings showed that there were no statistically significant differences between male and female EFL learners in terms of their epistemological beliefs. In addition, It was found that sophomore student’s mean score was significantly higher than that of the freshman students on ‘certain knowledge’ and ‘quick learning’ sub-scales indicating that sophomore students had more naive beliefs about ‘certain knowledge’ and ‘quick learning’ than freshman students.

Keywords: structure of knowledge; stability of knowledge; source of knowledge; ability to learn; speed of learning; gender; educational level

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5861/ijrsp.2014.754

*Corresponding Author