Determining the educational philosophies and epistemological beliefs adopted by science teachers and examining the relationship between them

The aim of this research is to determine the educational philosophies and epistemological beliefs of science teachers in terms of various variables and to examine the relationship between them. The sample of the research consists of 149 science teachers working in public secondary schools in Tokat province and its districts in the 2020/2021 academic year. Educational Beliefs Scale and Epistemological Beliefs Scale were used to collect data in the study, which was carried out according to the relational survey model, one of the quantitative research methods. The data obtained were analyzed according to the variables of gender, age, professional seniority, graduated faculty and educational status, and the relationship between epistemological beliefs and educational philosophies was examined. Descriptive statistics, t-test, Mann-Whitney U, ANOVA and Pearson correlation analysis were used in the analysis of the data. According to the findings of the research, it was seen that science teachers mostly adopted existentialism and least essentialism educational philosophies. It has been determined that female teachers adopt the existentialism educational philosophy more, male teachers and young teachers adopt the essentialism educational philosophy, and teachers with more professional experience of reconstructivism and perennialism educational philosophies. It has been determined that while science teachers have developed beliefs in the the source of knowledge is expert and learning is talent sub-dimension and scale-wide from epistemological beliefs, they have moderate beliefs in the learning does not depend on effort and knowledge is one and only certain sub-dimensions, that is, they do not have a strong belief. It was observed that male teachers had more developed beliefs in the sub-dimensions of "learning is not dependent on effort" and "knowledge is unique and certain" of epistemological beliefs. In addition, in the sub-dimension of "knowledge is one and certain", it was determined that young teachers, teachers in the first years of their profession and teachers who graduated from the faculty of education have more developed beliefs. In addition, it has been determined that whether the teachers are master's graduates or not does not affect the educational philosophy they adopt and their epistemological beliefs. It has been observed that there are significant relationships between the educational philosophies adopted by science teachers and the epistemological belief sub-dimensions.