Educational Policy Analysis and Strategic Research, cilt.17, sa.2, ss.165-207, 2022 (Hakemli Dergi)
This study attempts to identify the pre-service secondary mathematics teachers’ epistemological
beliefs towards learning, their educational beliefs, and critical thinking dispositions as well as the
relationship between them. A relational survey model was employed and the study group consisted of
152 pre-service teachers. The study used Epistemological Beliefs Scale towards Learning (EBStL),
The Educational Philosophy Tendencies Scale (EPTS), and Marmara Critical Thinking Dispositions
Scale (MCTDS) as data collection tools. The results suggested that pre-service secondary
mathematics teachers’ epistemological beliefs and critical thinking dispositions were above the
average value. Moreover, they were found to have progressive and reconstructivist tendencies. The
results also revealed that the pre-service secondary mathematics teachers’ epistemological beliefs
towards learning did not differ across their gender, academic achievement, parents’ educational level
while significantly differed in terms of their grade level. The pre-service secondary mathematics’
teachers’ educational beliefs significantly varied across their gender, grade level while that was not
the case for their academic achievement and parents’ educational level. Besides, the results
confirmed positive and significant relationships between the pre-service teachers’ epistemological
beliefs towards learning and their critical thinking disposition levels and progressivism, further
positive and significant relationships were noted between the critical thinking dispositions and
progressivism, reconstructionism and perennialism. Progressivism was found to be explained by
epistemological beliefs towards learning and critical thinking dispositions; reconstructionism was
found to be explained by critical thinking disposition; epistemological beliefs towards learning was
determined to be explained by progressivism and critical thinking disposition, and critical thinking
dispositions were identified to be explained by reconstructionism and perennialism