SOSYAL BİLGİLER ÖĞRETMEN ADAYLARININ EPİSTEMOLOJİK İNANÇLARININ ANALİZİ (The Analysis Of Epistemological Beliefs Of Nominate Social Sciences Teachers)

This research aimed to determine epistemological belief of Celal Bayar University College of Education Department of Social Sciences students and Erzincan University College of Education Department of Social Sciences students. Epistemology is a dynamic field which is affect education and can be affected by education process. There are many variables effect epistemological belief of an individual. It is important to define these variables to develop learning environment and learning process. Epistemological belief of teachers substantially effect classroom activities of teachers. Determining epistemological belief of prospective teachers will contribute to predict epistemological belief of social sciences teachers and supposed that teacher may have more sophistical belief. Schommer’s “epistemological belief scale” used to determine epistemological belief of prospective social science teachers. Factor analyses revealed that epistemological belief scale produced 3 dimensions titled as, ‘source of knowledge is specialists and learning needs ability’, ‘learning is not depend on effort’, and ‘knowledge is unique and certain’ and total explained variances of dimensions are consecutively: %23; %29.44 ve %27.5 and alpha reliability coefficients are: .74; .64 ve .70. Sample of the research consisted of Celal Bayar University College of Education Department of the Social Sciences students and Erzincan University College of Education Department of the Social Sciences students totally 338 in 2011-2012 of academic year. Epistemological belief of prospective social sciences teachers examined via t-test, F test and Mann Whitney U test. Results reveal that prospective social sciences teachers mostly agreed to ‘source of knowledge is specialists and learning needs ability’ dimension; whereas slightly agreed to ‘learning is not depend on effort’, and ‘knowledge is unique and certain’ dimensions. Key Words: Epistemology, epistemological beliefs, social sciences, teacher candidates