Physics instructional context and learners’ epistemological beliefs

Abstract

This study focuses on the physics epistemological beliefs of physics learners in one of the universities located in Malaysia on instruction in physics education. Sophisticated physics epistemological beliefs learners perceive physics knowledge as dynamic, tentative, and evolving with highly interrelated concepts, and are able to see themselves as the knowers who can construct and evaluate knowledge through interaction with others. On the other hand, naive physics epistemological beliefs learners view physics knowledge as fixed and absolute as well as truth and fact accumulating knowledge that is transmitted and received from authorities. Research shows that physics learners adopt different learning strategies according to their physics epistemological beliefs. Learners with sophisticated physics epistemological beliefs tend to use deep learning approach while their counterparts are likely to adopt rote learning strategies. Hypothesis shows that instructional context exerts strong impact on learners’ physics epistemological beliefs. However, many research have not provided detailed explanation on how instructional context practices influence learners’ epistemological beliefs. Thus, the objectives of this research study are to investigate learners’ physics epistemological beliefs towards instructional context and to develop a framework outlining the instructional context that causes sophisticated and naive physics epistemological beliefs. Phenomenological research design was used and the data was collected from four respondents for a semester through interviews and observations. Constant comparative method was used to analyse the collected qualitative data. As a result, a framework with six categories and 36 sub-categories of instructional context was generated which explain the development of learners’ physics epistemological beliefs. The framework serves as the basic guideline for physics educators to better design instructional context which will enhance the development of sophisticated physics epistemological beliefs among learners to improve their learning strategies and physics conceptual understanding.