Merk Samuel, Rosman Tom, Rueß Julia, Syring Marcus, Schneider Jürgen
Institute for Education, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany.
Leibniz Institute for Psychology Information (ZPID), Trier, Germany.
PLoS One. 2017 Sep 21;12(9):e0184971. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0184971. eCollection 2017.
Pre-service teachers tend to devalue general pedagogical knowledge (GPK) as a valid source for deriving successful teaching practices. The present study investigated beliefs about knowledge sources and epistemic beliefs as predictors for students' perceived value of GPK. Three pre-registered hypotheses were tested. We expected beliefs that GPK originates from scientific sources to entail a devaluation of GPK (Hypothesis 1). Concerning epistemic beliefs, we expected absolute beliefs to positively, and multiplistic beliefs to negatively predict pre-service teachers' perceived practical value of GPK (Hypothesis 2). Finally, we expected relationships between epistemic beliefs and pre-service teachers' perceived practical value of GPK to be confounded by epistemic trustworthiness, perceived topic-specific consistency and topic-specific familiarity (Hypothesis 3). In a study using a split plot design, 365 pre-service teachers were presented with four texts on different educational research topics. For each topic, three text versions were constructed. Even though they were invariant in content, these versions varied in a way that the results were allegedly generated by a practitioner, an expert or by means of a scientific study. Unexpectedly, results showed that research findings allegedly generated by means of a scientific study were associated with a higher perceived value of (topic-specific) GPK for practice (Hypothesis 1). As expected, the perceived value of GPK for practice was predicted by topic-specific multiplism and domain-specific absolutism (Hypothesis 2). These predictive effects were confounded by expertise evaluations of the source and the consistency of prior beliefs with the presented research results (Hypothesis 3). In summary, our results suggest that source beliefs might not be responsible for the devaluation of GPK, but that beliefs on the nature and structure of GPK (i.e., epistemic beliefs) might play an even more important role in this respect. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
职前教师往往贬低一般教学知识（GPK），不认为它是获得成功教学实践的有效知识来源。本研究调查了关于知识来源的信念和认知信念，将其作为学生对GPK感知价值的预测因素。检验了三个预先登记的假设。我们预期，认为GPK源自科学来源的信念会导致对GPK的贬低（假设1）。关于认知信念，我们预期绝对信念会正向预测、多元信念会负向预测职前教师对GPK的感知实践价值（假设2）。最后，我们预期认知信念与职前教师对GPK的感知实践价值之间的关系会受到认知可信度、感知到的特定主题一致性和特定主题熟悉度的混淆（假设3）。在一项采用裂区设计的研究中，向365名职前教师展示了四篇关于不同教育研究主题的文本。对于每个主题，构建了三个文本版本。尽管这些版本在内容上不变，但在呈现方式上有所不同，即结果据称是由一名从业者、一名专家或通过一项科学研究得出的。出乎意料的是，结果表明，据称通过科学研究得出的研究结果与对（特定主题的）GPK在实践中的更高感知价值相关（假设1）。正如预期的那样，特定主题的多元主义和特定领域的绝对主义预测了GPK在实践中的感知价值（假设2）。这些预测效应受到对来源的专业评估以及先前信念与所呈现研究结果的一致性的混淆（假设3）。总之，我们的结果表明，关于知识来源的信念可能不是导致GPK被贬低的原因，而是关于GPK的性质和结构的信念（即认知信念）在这方面可能发挥更重要的作用。讨论了对研究和实践的启示。
