Exploratory study of Hong Kong teacher education students' epistemological beliefs: Cultural perspectives and implications on beliefs research

This paper reports a study of epistemological beliefs of Hong Kong teacher education students in which such four belief dimensions have been identified. The result is similar to that found by Schommer with North American university students in that the number of dimensions is the same but the nature of the dimensions is different. The paper hypothesizes that these differences can be accounted for in terms of differences in cultural context. In particular, the difference in dimensions concerned with authority-expert knowledge and effort and learning reported in this study might be explained by value differences between Western (North American) and non-Western (Hong Kong Chinese) Culture. From a methodological perspective, the interview data also imply difficulties in measuring knowledge beliefs and one finding from the study is that in-depth interviews to complement quantitative data are necessary for trustworthy study of epistemological beliefs. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science (USA).