This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Buehl, M. M Articles by Alexander, P. A Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Motivation and Performance Differences in Students’ Domain-Specific Epistemological Belief Profiles

University of Memphis

Patricia A Alexander

University of Maryland, College Park

Cluster analysis and analysis of variance procedures were used to identify students’ domain-specific epistemological belief profiles and to examine differences in students’ beliefs, motivation, and task performance. Four hundred eighty-two undergraduates completed measures regarding their beliefs about knowledge, competency beliefs, and achievement values relative to history and mathematics and participated in domain learning tasks. Cluster analysis was used to identify epistemological belief profile groups within the domains of history and mathematics. Students with more sophisticated belief profiles had higher levels of motivation and task performance. Although the configuration of profiles differed across domains, cross-domain analyses suggested a tendency for students to be relatively consistent in the sophistication of their beliefs across domains. These findings provide evidence of the dual nature of epistemological beliefs.

Key Words: belief profiles • cluster analysis • epistemological beliefs • expectancy-value theory • motivation

American Educational Research Journal, Vol. 42, No. 4, 697-726 (2005)
DOI: 10.3102/00028312042004697


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?