Abstract

Epistemological beliefs are the beliefs that people have about the nature of knowledge and knowing. Examined in this study were three aspects of the construct of students' epistemological beliefs in the Saudi Arabian culture. First, epistemological dimensions that male and female college students hold were examined. Second, the idea of domain-independence/dependence of these beliefs was tested with students from religious and science disciplines. Third, gender differences in regard to epistemological beliefs were investigated. ;It was found that epistemological beliefs have an influence on students' perceptions of knowledge and processes of knowing. Quantitative and qualitative approaches were conducted to assess these phenomena. ;The sample contained 380 participants from upper level religion and science classes who lived in the Middle Region of Saudi Arabia. Two factors were identified in exploratory factor analysis: Active/Deep Learning and Simple/Certain knowledge . Effects for academic discipline were significant at the .05 and .000 levels of the two factors, respectively. Gender differences were significant at the .000 level for the Active/Deep Learning factor but not for the Simple/Certain factor. However, interaction was found to be significant at the .000 level between major and gender in the Simple/Certain Factor. This interaction was due to a larger difference among females as a function of major. Results from the open-ended question and the interviews yielded similar results