Teachers' epistemological beliefs on learning and examination of the relationship between life long learning tendencies

In this study, the relationship between epistemological beliefs towards learning and lifelong learning tendencies of teachers working in all kinds of educational institutions affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in Akyazı district of Sakarya province in the 2020-2021 academic year in terms of gender, age, seniority, marital status and school type variables. was carried out to determine whether there was a significant difference. The "Lifelong Learning Tendency Scale" was used to determine teachers' lifelong learning tendencies, and the "Epistemological Belief Scale for Learning" was used to determine their epistemological beliefs towards learning. Quantitative method was preferred in the study and easy accessibility sample type was chosen for the sample group. The data were analyzed in SPSS 25.0 program. Since the data did not show a normal distribution, Mann Whitney U was used for bivariate questions, Kruskall-Wallis for questions with more than two variables, and Spearman Correlation Test was used to determine the relationship between scales. As a result of the analysis studies, it was determined that teachers' perceptions of their epistemological beliefs towards learning were moderate, high in the sub-dimension of accessing information, low in the sub-dimension against genetic nature and absolute and single reality sub-dimension, and moderate in the epistemic contradiction sub-dimension. Teachers' epistemological beliefs towards learning were also examined in terms of age-professional seniority-gender-type of school-martial status variable. While there was no statistical difference in all variables when the whole scale was considered, a statistical difference was found in the variable of age-professional seniority-martial status-school type in the absolute and single reality sub-dimension, which is one of the sub-dimensions of the scale. In the study, it was determined that teachers' perceptions of lifelong learning tendencies were high for the willingness to learn and openness to development sub-dimension and the arithmetic mean for the whole scale. In addition, teachers' lifelong learning tendencies were also examined in terms of age-professional seniority-gender-type of school-martial status variables. According to the results, it was determined that there was no statistical difference in the whole scale and its sub-dimensions in the school type and gender variable. While there was no statistical difference in the whole scale in the marital status and age variable, a statistical difference was found in terms of both variables in the sub-dimension of openness to development, which is one of the sub-dimensions of the scale. In the professional seniority variable, it was determined that teachers with a professional seniority of 1-10 years in the whole scale and in the sub-dimension of openness to development have a statistically higher level of lifelong learning tendency than teachers with a professional seniority of 21 years and above. In addition, according to Spearman Correlation Analysis, it was seen that there was no statistical relationship between teachers' epistemological beliefs about learning and their lifelong learning tendencies.