Culture and epistemology: An investigation of different patterns in epistemological beliefs across cultures.

摘要

The purpose of this study is to develop a causal model to investigate the effects of culturally conditioned self-construals and higher education on epistemological beliefs. In recent years, a reasonable number of studies have documented substantive relationships between students' epistemological beliefs and learning. The underlying assumption in epistemological belief studies is that individuals with more sophisticated epistemological beliefs may have different learning and problem solving behaviors from those with less sophisticated beliefs. While the influence of epistemological beliefs on learning behaviors has been identified, few studies have explored cultural variability in epistemological beliefs. Using independent and interdependent self-construals (Markus & Kitayama, 1991) as cultural indicators and a five-factor epistemic model delineated by Schommer (1990), this study examined how culturally conditioned self-construals affected epistemological beliefs. A multiethnic sample of 692 undergraduate and graduate students in the United States participated in this study. Through a series of confirmatory factor analyses, the originally hypothesized five-factor model was reduced to a four-factor model. A structural equation model subsequently identified that all of the four epistemological belief factors are significantly and positively affected by "educational level," and are significantly and negatively influenced by "interdependent self-construal." "Independent self-construal" was observed to have significant and positive effects on epistemological factors, "certainty of knowledge" and "omniscient authority." These results suggest that the particular kinds of epistemological beliefs valued in American schools may be biased in favor of students with Western cultural backgrounds and against students with non-Western cultural backgrounds such as East Asian Americans.