Investigating Epistemological Beliefs on Science of Male and Female Students From Grade 7 and Grade 11 of Emiliano Tria Tirona Memorial National High School Sy. 2016-2017

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Various studies conducted all over the world found that students' epistemological belief is related to their academic achievement. The researcher's attention was caught as to how do the beliefs of students differ as they advance to the next grade level and how do male and female students differ in their beliefs. If these possible differences will be established, this may be linked to their performance thus proper authorities may develop a way to increase their academic achievement through epistemological beliefs. With this, the present study aimed to investigate the epistemological beliefs on science of students according to gender and grade level.

METHODS

This study utilized the descriptive method and static group comparison pre-experimental design. To determine the level of epistemological beliefs of students, the study adopted the Epistemological Belief Questionnaire (EBQ) developed by Conley et. al. (2004). It was administered to 40 students coming from one intact section of grade 7 and another section from grade 11. Weighted mean and standard deviation were used to analyze the level of beliefs of students while two-way ANOVA was used to look for significant difference between the two independent variables.

RESULTS

It was found that the grade 7 and grade 11 students generally have a sophisticated stance in their overall epistemological beliefs on science. However, in terms of each dimension, both grade 7 and grade 11 students have sophisticated stances in the justification and development dimensions only while unsophisticated beliefs on source and certainty dimensions. The results also showed that there is no significant difference in students' epistemological beliefs on science in terms of gender. However, students showed a significant difference in terms of grade level in which students in higher grade level have higher epistemological beliefs than students in the lower grades.

DISCUSSIONS

The above-mentioned results imply that teachers may focus on constructivist and inquiry-based teaching and strengthen laboratory activities to maintain higher epistemological beliefs in terms of justification and development dimensions while alleviating the source and certainty dimensions. This means that the teaching of science might be inclined to a more student-centered approach wherein students themselves input ideas about the topic and the role of the teacher is just a facilitator of these ideas.