Analyzing pre-service teachers’ educational philosophy preferences, curriculum design orientation, and epistemological beliefs with structural equation model

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the partial mediating effect of epistemological beliefs in the correlation between preferences towards educational philosophy and the curriculum design approach of pre-service teachers. For this purpose, pre-service teachers’ educational philosophy preferences, curriculum design orientation, and epistemological beliefs have been analyzed, and a model has been developed. Three different instruments have been implemented to randomly chosen 568 pre-service teachers in several departments in Necatibey Faculty of Education of Balıkesir University in Turkey. In the analyzing process, first, a measurement model has been developed, and compatibility of the model with real data has tested, second, Pearson correlation coefficients have calculated, and the levels have defined, third, t values have calculated for the direct effect between preference for educational philosophies and curriculum design orientation preference, and at last, the epistemological beliefs have added to the model, and the moderating role on them has calculated. Based on findings, it can be concluded that from the pre-service teachers perspective; there is a positive correlation between widely accepted educational philosophies, and curriculum design orientations and there is a positive correlation between epistemological beliefs in effort and contemporary educational philosophies. In line with that, there is a positive correlation between epistemological belief in effort, and student-oriented design and problem-oriented design. Besides educational philosophy preferences (P=.14) and epistemological beliefs (P=.18) have a separate effect on curriculum design orientation, and epistemological beliefs (CIs =-.029 ~.588) do not have a mediating role on the effect of educational philosophy preferences. © 2021, Ozgen Korkmaz. All rights reserved.