Friends,

I have been doing some research on the epistemology of teachers and need to pick your collective brain about established measures for teacher beliefs (epistemologies).??A brief description of the study follows:

Our hypothesis is that if we change fundamental beliefs that teachers hold about knowledge they will be more likely to adopt teaching practices recommended by reforms.?The model we plan to develop is an intervention similar to good science inquiry where misconceptions are exposed and then challenged through data and or logical argument.?We believe that students will be forced through these confrontations to accommodate their beliefs and then their behaviors to ones that are supported by educational research.?The research will be done with pre-service candidates in a teacher preparation program and later adapted for practicing teachers through in-service experiences.?

In the reading I have done there seem to be at least three schools of thought:

?First is developmental and within that there is what seems to be stages vs. structures.?They cite King and Kitchener (2004),

Second is one that teases apart different aspects of epistemology, Complexity of knowledge and source of knowledge.?(They cite Hofer and Pintrich, 1997),

Third is the perspective of epistemology built from "fine grain cognitive resources"?How they distinguish this from structures I am not sure (they cite Hammer and Elby, 2002 and diSessa, 1993).?Are any of you familiar with these works??Could you recommend from among them the approach that you feel holds the most promise and why? And finally are there instruments within these approaches that could be used to examine progress made by teacher candidates

Thanks for your time.

Jonas Cox
Associate Professor
Gonzaga University 

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