DIMENSIONS OF TOPIC-SPECIFIC EPISTEMOLOGICAL BELIEFS AS PREDICTORS OF MULTIPLE TEXT UNDERSTANDING

Helge I. Stromso and Ivar Braten

University of Oslo

Marit S. Samuelstuen

Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Aim

The aim of this research was to examine whether students’ topic-specific epistemological beliefs were related to their understanding of multiple texts.

Theoretical framework

            Students' beliefs and theories about knowledge and knowing, or personal epistemologies, have received increased attention from researchers (e.g., Hofer & Pintrich, 2002; Muis, Bendixen, & Haerle, in press). One track of research has focused on the relationship between personal epistemologies and text comprehension (Kardash & Howell, 2000; Schommer-Aikins & Easter, 2004), with results indicating that less sophisticated beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowing are related to poorer comprehension performance. The bulk of such research has so far been restricted to students’ comprehension of single texts.

            Several researchers have argued that personal epistemology may be particularly important when students work on complex learning tasks (Hartley & Bendixen, 2001; Spiro et al., 1996). The understanding of multiple texts may obviously be described as such a task (Rouet, 2006), and in a recent study we found that only students holding sophisticated epistemological beliefs profited from the of reading multiple texts, whereas students with less sophisticated beliefs gained better understanding when reading a single text (Bråten & Strømsø, 2006). In that study, we used a measure of participants’ overall epistemological beliefs rather than measures of specific dimensions. Currently, we set out to examine whether central dimensions of topic-specific epistemology would predict students’ comprehension of multiple texts.

Methodology

One-hundred and forty-four undergraduate education students read seven texts representing partly conflicting views on climate change. Before reading, students’ word decoding and prior knowledge about climate change were assessed. Additionally, we administered a topic-specific epistemological questionnaire concerning beliefs about knowledge about climate and how one comes to know about climate. The 49 items were written to reflect the theoretical model of Hofer and Pintrich (1997), including the four dimensions of certainty, simplicity, and source of knowledge, as well as justification for knowing.

            After reading, the participants were given one sentence verification task (SVT) to assess their surface understanding, one inference verification task (IVT) to assess their deeper understanding of each single text (intratextual understanding), and one inference verification task (InterVT) to assess their ability to draw inferences across texts (i.e., intertextual understanding).

Results

To determine the dimensionality of topic-specific epistemological beliefs, we conducted several exploratory factor analyses using principal component estimation with oblique rotation. The final solution included four components with eigenvalues ranging from 4.06 to 1.75, explaining 40.3 % of the total sample variation. The components were labelled certainty of knowledge about climate, simplicity of knowledge about climate, source of knowledge about climate, and critical and analytical stance to knowledge about climate.

            Next, three hierarchical multiple regression analyses were run with the three different text comprehension tasks as dependent variables. In each analysis, gender, age, word decoding, and prior knowledge were entered into the equation in step one. In step two, we included scores on the four measures of topic-specific epistemological beliefs that resulted from our factor analyses.

            For SVT, model 1 explained a significant amount of the variance in students’ scores, R² = .15, F_change(4, 139) = 6.03, p < .001, with a positive relationship for prior knowledge (β = .35, p < .001). After step two, there was a significant increase in explained variance, R² = .26, F_change(4, 135) = 5.14, p < .001, with a significant contribution from simplicity beliefs (β = .32, p < .001).

            For IVT, model 1 explained a significant amount of the variance, R² = .19, F_change(4, 130) = 7.62, p < .001, with a positive relationship for prior knowledge (β = .36, p < .001). After step two, there was a significant increase in the explained variance, R² = .31, F_change(4, 126) = 5.51, p < .001, with simplicity beliefs as a significant positive predictor (β = .29, p < .001) and source beliefs as a significant negative predictor (β = -.26, p < .001).

            For InterVT, model 1 explained a significant amount of the variance, R² = .20, F_change(4, 125) = 7.56, p < .001, with positive relationships for prior knowledge (β = .26, p = .002), gender (β = .25, p = .004), and age (β = .18, p= .032). After step two, there was a significant increase in the explained variance, R² = .31, F_change(4, 121) = 5.24, p < .001, with simplicity (β = .32, p < .001) and certainty beliefs (β = .19, p = .021) as positive predictors of intertextual understanding.

Conclusions

            Students with sophisticated beliefs about the simplicity of knowledge about climate, viewing knowledge as consisting of highly interrelated concepts rather than isolated facts, were better comprehenders of multiple texts both at a surface and at a deeper level. Moreover, students likely to believe that knowledge about climate is tentative and evolving rather than absolute and unchanging were more able to draw inferences across the seven texts. However, less sophisticated source beliefs, emphasizing that knowledge resides in external authority rather than being actively constructed by the reader, were related to better deep-level understanding of each single text. This result suggests that readers with limited prior knowledge about a complex topic like climate change may have overconfidence in their own ability to construct meaning without paying close attention to what the author or text really says. Additionally, age seemed to matter when students had to draw inferences across texts, and female participants tackled this challenging task in a better way than did males. Our findings imply that teachers need to pay attention to students’ beliefs about knowledge and knowing when complex tasks such as the understanding of multiple sources form a significant part of the curriculum.