Students’ epistemic beliefs in Sweden and Germany and their interrelations with classroom characteristics

In the field of epistemic belief research, more studies on how these beliefs

are formed in different cultural contexts are called for. Moreover, there are

strong assumptions that teachers’ instructional practices are paramount to

the development of students’ epistemic beliefs. The current study aims at

investigating differences between Sweden and Germany in both, and in

their relationships. A cross-sectional study was conducted with 4,731

students in Grades 5 through 11. To sum up, latent multi group

comparison revealed several differences in the level of students’ beliefs

and classroom characteristics. Moreover, latent regression analyses

showed that the observed classroom characteristics were significant

predictors of students’ beliefs concerning the justification and

development of knowledge, and that the prediction pattern differ

between countries.