Connotative aspects of epistemological beliefs: A pseudo-longitudinal study with students of  different mathematical Programmes of Study

Anna Schreck; Jana Groß Ophoff; Benjamin Rott

doi:10.31129/LUMAT.12.1.2138

Authors

Anna Schreck University of Cologne, Germany https://orcid.org/0009-0006-7141-9230
Jana Groß Ophoff University College of Teacher Education Vorarlberg, Austria https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0327-8107
Benjamin Rott University of Cologne, Germany https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8113-1584

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31129/LUMAT.12.1.2138

Keywords:

epistemological beliefs, connotative aspects, development, mathematics, pseudo-longitudinal study

Abstract

Various studies have shown that epistemological beliefs affect personal learning and teaching performances. Therefore, epistemological beliefs have become an attractive object of research with different methods of survey. A distinction can be made between denotative and connotative aspects of beliefs, the former being reflected upon, explicit beliefs, whereas the latter being associative and evaluative judgements on (in our case: mathematical) epistemological beliefs. The present study used the instrument Connotative Aspects of Epistemological Beliefs by Stahl and Bromme to collect data from university students in mathematics in the years of 2017, 2018 and 2019. The pseudo-longitudinal data analysis showed 1. that students hold different connotative beliefs regarding the two domains “mathematics at university” and “mathematics at school” regardless their study progress, 2. that the beliefs remain relatively stable within the domains overtime and 3. that – considering the different mathematical programmes of study (e.g., pre-service teachers vs. mathematics majors) – the students’ connotative beliefs mainly differ regarding beliefs about the simplicity of mathematical knowledge at school.

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