Changes in Primary School Teachers ’ Beliefs about Knowing: a longitudinal study

A teaching programme designed to facilitate the reflection on and development of more sophisticated epistemological beliefs was implemented with 29 pre-service graduate teacher education students at a large metropolitan university in Australia in 1997. As part of the year-long teaching programme, the students were required to reflect in journal entries on the content of an educational psychology unit in relation to their epistemological beliefs. The students engaged in this teaching programme were interviewed in relation to their beliefs about knowing at the beginning (Interview 1) and conclusion (Interview 2) of the teaching programme. Eleven participants were then interviewed again (Interview 3) in their third year of teaching. The results of the qualitative data analysis of all three interviews indicated that, over time, seven participants became more constructivist in their beliefs about knowing, two maintained the same beliefs, while two described less constructivist beliefs. Implications for teaching are discussed. Background Student teachers ’ beliefs are often not addressed within teacher education programmes (Nespor, 1987). However, there is a growing body of research that suggests it is important to consider pre-service teachers ’ beliefs, in particular epistemological beliefs, in teacher education because these beliefs will influence their teaching practice