Identification and analysis of epistemological beliefs of Shahed University's students

Epistemological beliefs represent fundamental orientations about learning. Therefore، it is considered as the most common cause of sustainable development in academic and social lives of students. The aim of present study was to identify and analyze the dimensions of students'' epistemological beliefs. The research method was descriptive -survey and a sample of over 361 undergraduate and postgraduate students of Shahed University in medical and non-medical colleges were investigated. The research instrument was Schumer''s Epistemological Beliefs Questionnaire (1993) in which its construct validity and reliability were determined according to educational expert''s view، and calculating Cronbach''s alpha coefficient (. 79)، respectively. In descriptive and inferential analysis of the data، means comparison، Univariate t and two independent groups t tests were used. The results indicated the lack of beliefs in students’ simplicity and certainty of the knowledge structure and inherent ability to quickly learn the concepts. The analysis of results on the moderator variables also has shown that postgraduate students have had lower naive epistemological beliefs than undergraduates. But in the epistemological beliefs of male and female، as well as medical and non-medical students، no significant differences were observed.