Epistemic Belief Inventory: Its Adaptation Into Turkish and The Testing of its Validity and Reliability

This study aims to adapt the Epistemic Belief Inventory developed by Schraw, Bendixen, and Dunkle (2002) and then to test its validity and reliability. Designed as a cross-sectional survey, the current study employs 530 undergraduate students attending the education faculties of Usak and Dumlupınar universities in 2015-2016 academic year. In order to test the inventory’s structural validity, an exploratory factor analysis was carried out. The original structure of the scale consisted of 28 items and four dimensions which are called as "expert authority", "certain knowledge", "rapid learning", "simple knowledge", and "innate ability". After the application of exploratory factor analysis, the structure of the scale has came out as 15 items in four dimensions, which follow as "the access to knowledge and obtaining it", "certain knowledge", "innate ability", and "simple knowledge". It was found out that the adapted version of the Inventory explains 52,22% of the total variance. It also suits to investigate the multi-dimensional complexity of epistemological beliefs. In order to test the inventory’s reliability, its Cronbach’s Alpha score was calculted and found as ,78. The confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the inventory could be used in the Turkish context. As a result, the findings indicate that the final version of the inventory is a valid and reliable tool to measure peoples’ epistemological beliefs