The effect of epistemiological beliefs of secondary school students on critical thinking tendency and academic self-efficacy (Afyonkarahisar sample)

The aim of this study is to determine the effect of secondary school students' epistemological beliefs on their critical thinking tendency and academic self-efficacy. In this study, relational survey design, one of the quantitative research designs, was used to investigate the effect of secondary school students' epistemological beliefs on their critical thinking tendency and academic self-efficacy. The population of the study consists of the students studying in the official secondary schools of Afyonkarahisar Provincial Directorate of National Education in 2019-2020 academic year. The sample of the study consists of 678 secondary school students determined by using the simple random sampling method. "Epistemological Beliefs Scale" developed by Aypay (2011), "Critical Thinking Tendency Scale" developed by Ertaş Kılıç and Şen (2014) and "Academic Self-Efficacy Scale" developed by Ekici (2012) were used as data collection tools. Frequency, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, Pearson Correlation test, unrelated samples t-Test and One Way MANOVA analyses were used in the analysis of the data. When the results of the study were examined, a positive and moderate relationship was found between the self-efficacy scale and the "Doubt to Learning Process-Doubt to Authority/Expert Knowledge" and "Learning Efficacy" sub-dimensions of the epistemological beliefs scale, and a positive low-level relationship with the "Precision of Knowledge" sub-dimension. On the other hand, there was no significant relationship between "Congenital/Fixed Ability" sub-dimension and academic self-efficacy scale. A significant positive relationship was found between the critical thinking tendency scale and the academic self-efficacy scale. While there was a positive and moderate significant relationship between the "Learning process-Doubt to Authority/Expert Knowledge, "Learning Efficacy", and the "Precision of Knowledge" sub-dimensions and the critical thinking tendency scale, there was no significant relationship between the "Congenital/Fixed Ability" sub-dimension and critical thinking tendency scale. In addition, it was concluded that the sub-dimension levels of secondary school students' epistemological belief scale had a significant effect on their critical thinking tendency and academic self-efficacy. Keywords: Epistemological belief, critical thinking tendency, academic self-efficacy.