Investigating the relation between pre-service EFL teachers’ epistemic cognition, instructional preferences and perceived engagement beliefs

Abstract

Representing teachers’ personal approaches regarding issues related to knowledge and how knowledge is to be acquired, epistemic cognitions are relevant constructs for instructional practices of teachers. Therefore, the present study was designed to measure the possible connections between and among pre-service EFL teachers’ epistemic cognition, instructional preferences and engagement. To this end, 149 pre-service teachers were surveyed. Three data collection methods were used within the scope of the study. The first one is the Epistemic Beliefs Scale, developed by Chan and Elliot (2002, 2004). It is a 30 Likert-type scale. The second tool was the Instructional Preference Questionnaire. This scale was based on Chan and Eliott (2004) and it included 30 items. The third scale was Teacher Engagement Scale, which was developed by Klassen et al (2013). Correlation and regression were used to analyze the data.