Assessing the Multidimensionality of Students’ Epistemic Beliefs Across Diverse Cultures

Measurement is a critical issue in the study of individuals’ beliefs about knowledge. Given the prominence of the multidimensional conceptualization of epistemic beliefs, it is important to examine the multidimensional measures of beliefs more closely. An examination of literature reveals that although many studies have been conducted with the Schommer Epistemological Questionnaire or related measures, there are variations with regard to the number of identified factors and the nature of the beliefs those factors are meant to represent. Further, additional knowledge dimensions have been proposed and new measures of multidimensional beliefs have been developed. Although some variations are to be expected due to the measures used, age of the participants sampled, and the forms of analyses employed, the role of students’ cultural background must also be considered. In this chapter, I discuss the psychometric properties of the existing measures as well as how the factors that have been identified vary depending on the characteristics of participants and the analyses conducted. Emergent patterns from the existing studies and implications for refining and developing measures in future research are discussed.