Investigation of Epistemological Beliefs in Farhangian University teachers with regard to Demographic characteristics

Reflective teachers are effective teachers that they always thinking about better learning for their students and professional development for themselves. Because university Teachers are the most important role models for their students, so, studying the quality of theirs’ epistemological beliefs and recognizing the effective variables on it, are among the main factors in reflective teacher education. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate Teachers’ epistemological beliefs and the role of their demographic characteristics in this regard. This study carried out via quantitative approach and with the help of survey research method. The population is all the full-time Teachers in Shahid Hashemi Nejad Campus in Mashhad (160people) in the academic year 2016-2017. The sample was selected based on Morgan Table (113 people) and the method of simple random sampling was used. Data were gathered through Epistemic Beliefs Inventory (EBI) with suitable Cronbach's alpha (0.82). The results revealed that faculties’ epistemological beliefs are at the rather high level. Again, there are a significant difference between faculties’ epistemological beliefs and both their level of education and majors. Somehow epistemological beliefs in faculties who were graduated in humanity fields and with P.h.D certificates were much more than faculties who were graduated in either other fields or have other certificates.