Abstract

We explore the structure of epistemological beliefs and its relation with the spontaneous formation of study groups in a sample of biomedical engineering students. The sophistication of the beliefs as well as the size and distribution of spontaneous small groups were measured for subjects in three different academic years: junior, intermediate and senior. Through principal components analysis, a four-factor structure was found for the epistemological beliefs, additionally validated with confirmatory factor analysis. The spontaneous small groups were determined by a clustering algorithm with data from a survey applied to 151 participants. Using parametric and non-parametric methods, it was found that the size of the group for junior students was positively correlated to naive beliefs about the source of knowledge. For senior students, however, both size and number of groups were inversely correlated to the passiveness in learning. These results are discussed in the frame of the interplay between group praxis and mental representations in the learning process. In addition, general differences were encountered between learners in spontaneous small groups and lone learners concerning the belief about the speed of learning, which also showed an overall difference across gender.

摘要

我们在生物医学工程系学生样本中探索认识论信念的结构及其与研究小组的自发形成的关系。在三个不同的学年（初中，中级和高级）中，测量了信念的复杂程度以及自发小组的规模和分布。通过主成分分析，发现了认识论信念的四要素结构，并通过验证性因素分析进行​​了验证。自发小组由聚类算法确定，其中的数据来自对151名参与者的调查。使用参数和非参数方法，发现初中学生的小组规模与对知识来源的幼稚信念呈正相关。但是，对于高年级学生，小组的大小和数量都与学习的被动性成反比。这些结果在学习过程中小组实践与心理表征之间相互作用的框架中进行了讨论。此外，在自发的小群体学习者和孤独的学习者之间，关于学习速度的信念普遍存在差异，这也表明了性别之间的总体差异。