Abstract
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL STUDIES TEACHERS' EPISTEMOLOGICAL BELIEFS AND THEIR TEACHING STYLES
The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between social studies teachers' epistemological beliefs and their teaching styles. Survey model was used in the study. The participants' epistemological belief levels were measured with "Epistemological Belief Scale" (EBS) which was developed by Schommer (1990) and adapted to Turkish by Deryakulu and Büyüköztürk (2002). The data regarding the participants' teaching styles were gathered using "Grasha Teaching Style Inventory" (TSI) which was developed by Grasha (1996) and adapted to Turkish by Üredi (2006). With respect to the participant teachers' demographical characteristics, Personal Information Form was used. The participants were 202 social studies teaching working at the state and private schools within the borders of Eskisehir province in 2013-2014 school year. The data were analysed in SPSS 20.0.
The analyses of the research data showed that the participants strongly believed that learning depends on effort. As for the analyses on the relationship between the participants' epistemological beliefs and teaching styles they adopted, it was revealed that the belief in the existence of only one truth had a weak and positive relationship with expert teaching style while having a moderately positive and statistically significant relationship with authoritative teaching style. It was found that there was a weak, negative and statistically significant relationship between personal model teaching style and the belief that learning is based on effort.
Keywords
Belief, Epistemology, Epistemological Beliefs, Teaching Style, Social Studies Teaching
