Epistemological Beliefs Assessment for Physical Science (EBAPS)

Measures students' views about the nature of knowledge and learning in the physical sciences along five non-orthogonal dimensions (structure of scientific knowledge, nature of knowing and learning, real-life applicability, evolving knowledge, & source of ability to learn.

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by anonymous, , , 4

EBAPS is an attempt to ferret out opinions about student's beliefs about knowledge and learning (epistemologies) in reference to the physical sciences, refining and building off of earlier surveys. They attempt to phrase their questions such that disciplinary context and course-specific expectations about what strategies get high grades are mitigated as factors, while acknowledging that student's beliefs may not present as an ideology and/or not align precisely with academic categories about theory of learning. The tool links to a mini-paper explaining their reasoning and methodology, including the ways in which they think they failed to achieve their goals, which is a major point in their favor. They claim their tool rates students on a number of axes, which promises elegance. Given the small number of questions in each (5 axes, 25 questions), however, it's unclear how useful it is in practice. Additionally, given the number of questions and the thoughtfulness with which they're composed (including 3 different types of questions), it's unlikely it could be taken in a 20 minute window.