Much current research has focused on epistemic beliefs of students. However, teachers' epistemic practices are also important to study because they may influence students' epistemic beliefs. The standards for justification for different content areas necessitate that teachers use diverse pedagogical practices designed to help students develop…

Facilitating students' acquisition of higherorder thinking skills is imperative in the 21st century. Although some types of text have been shown to enhance higherorder thinking, the effects of many novel forms of text have yet to be investigated. As such, the purpose of the present study was to explore the extent to which a relatively novel form…

Research exploring beliefs about creativity has produced valuable findings regarding how individuals conceptualize creativity, yet, to date, there has been no systematic synthesis of this literature. As such, the purposes of this review were twofold: (a) to explore researchers' and teachers' conceptualizations of creativity; and, (b) to analyze…

Sociocultural and cognitive perspectives hold to epistemically different views on knowledge acquisition and change. While sociocultural perspectives point to social experience as the principal source of knowledge, cognitive perspectives emphasize the importance of the individual mind and reasoning as the primary source of knowledge. Herein, I…

Recent interest in epistemic beliefs has given way to a proliferation of new measures. Yet, little is known about the psychometric properties of various measures when used with diverse populations. In this study, the authors explored the psychometric properties of a measure of existing epistemic beliefs, the Domain-Specific Belief Questionnaire…

Compared the perceptions of persuasiveness of text of undergraduate students (n=195) to those of text-based persuasion and conceptual change experts (n=7). Findings show overlap between the students' and experts' conceptions of persuasion and also show the importance of type and form of supporting evidence and the affective nature of the text.…

The conception of knowledge was studied for 213 14- and 15-year-old students in Singapore and their 37 teachers and 96 students in the United States, with their 10 teachers. Cultural differences, including those in epistemological frameworks, are discussed, and their implications for education considered. (SLD)

Investigates profiles of mature adult readers' who are persuaded by what they read, and what role a reader's educational level plays in the persuasion process. Finds that, for the most part, readers with moderate but favorable stances, moderate to high interest in the topic, and at least moderate levels of perceived or demonstrated knowledge were…

Persuasion is an interactive process through which a given message alters individuals' perspectives by changing the knowledge, beliefs, or interests that underlie those perspectives. Although persuasion is seen as central to effective teaching and learning, there is still much to understand about the characteristics of learners, texts, and tasks…

Models of persuasion (e.g., Petty & Cacioppo, 1986) and conceptual change (Dole & Sinatra, 1998) acknowledge that reader elaboration of and engagement with a given text increases the potential for belief change and that the process of elaboration or engagement is fueled by reader motivation. However, little is known about the predictive powers of…

Most teacher educators would agree that one of the primary goals of a teacher preparation program is to teach individuals how to become good teachers. What is open to debate is exactly what characteristics define good teachers. Although there is a vast literature on good teaching, few studies have compared the beliefs of individuals at various…