Epistemological Beliefs and Scientific Reasoning in Finnish Academic Upper Secondary Education

Abstract

The guiding idea in this paper was to study how scientific reasoning correlates with epistemological beliefs and academic achievement. Based on the study at hand, we argue that the nature of epistemological beliefs is still more the product of the level of scientific reasoning than the other way round. As a practical implication we propose that teacher training programmes should consider epistemological beliefs not only as an important aspect that all learners and teachers should be aware of, but it should be recognised as a central factor that affects our formal and informal learning and teaching in all content areas of knowledge.