인식론적 신념과 사회탐구 학업 성취도간의 관계에 대한 연구 = The study on the relation between epistemological beliefs and academic performance in social studies

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The purpose of this study is to investigate correlation between epistemological beliefs and academic performance in social studies. There are various definitions on the epistemological beliefs. Schommer defined epistemological beliefs as beliefs about the nature of knowledge and learning. She divided the beliefs about the nature of knowledge into the beliefs in the structure of knowledge and the certainty of knowledge. She also divided the beliefs about the nature of learning into the beliefs in learning ability and learning speed. Therefore, she set up 4 sub-scales. In addition, she argued that these factors are interrelated independently as one system.
Precedent studies found out that epistemological beliefs have strong influences on academic performance, learning persistence, reading comprehension, and adaptation to ill-structured problems.
This thesis, based on these former literature studies, set up a hypothesis that there might be a close correlation between epistemological beliefs and social studies academic performance. To verify this hypothesis, I researched using the applied Schommer' questionnaires.
The consequences are as follows.
First, the more sophisticated beliefs in the structure of knowledge, the higher academic performance in social studies.
Second, the more sophisticated beliefs in certainty of knowledge, the higher academic performance in social studies.
Third, there was no statistically meaningful difference between the beliefs in learning ability, learning speed, and academic performance in social studies.
Epistemological beliefs have close relations with issue-centered curriculum or development of high-level thinking, which social studies are pursuing. Therefore, researchers of social studies should pay their attentions to it.