Teacher Education Students' Epistemological Beliefs

A teaching program based on relational pedagogy (Baxter Magolda, 1993a) was implemented to foster the development of epistemological beliefs in 29 pre-service teacher education students at a large metropolitan university in Australia. Epistemological beliefs are those personally held beliefs about the nature and structure of knowing. The students were interviewed in relation to their epistemological beliefs at the beginning (Time 1) and conclusion (Time 2) of the teaching program. The results of the qualitative data analysis indicated that students described more sophisticated relational epistemological beliefs over time. This finding is important given that teachers with relativistic epistemological beliefs are more likely to conceive of teaching as a transformative (constructivist) rather than transmissive. The perceived success of the teaching program has implications for the development of a relational teaching model in teacher education courses.