Epistemic beliefs (EBs) are a key issue in educational research and are relevant for students' learning from as early as elementary school. To quantitatively measure EBs in the domain of science, researchers commonly utilize self-report questionnaires that capture the dimensions of source, certainty, development, and justification of knowledge. Going beyond analyzing these measures of EBs from a variable-centered perspective, recent research has focused on a person-centered approach, for example, on latent profile analysis. By applying this approach, we investigated the number and characteristics of science EB profiles among 680 third- and fourth-grade students—a neglected age group in this line of research. We identified three profiles that showed level and shape differences in their science-related EBs: relatively absolutistic/static, absolutistic/evidence-based, and sophisticated. Moreover, these profiles differed considerably in their scientific inquiry competencies, motivational dispositions, and social background. We discuss implications for the development and promotion of elementary school students' science EBs.

认知信念 (EB) 是教育研究中的一个关键问题，并且与学生从小学开始的学习就相关。为了在科学领域对 EB 进行定量测量，研究人员通常使用自我报告问卷来捕捉知识的来源、确定性、发展和合理性等维度。除了从以变量为中心的角度分析这些 EB 指标之外，最近的研究还集中在以人为中心的方法上，例如，潜在轮廓分析。通过应用这种方法，我们调查了 680 名三年级和四年级学生的科学 EB 概况的数量和特征，这是该研究领域中被忽视的年龄组。我们确定了三个显示其科学相关 EB 水平和形状差异的配置文件：相对绝对的/静态的、绝对的/基于证据的和复杂的。此外，这些档案在科学探究能力、动机倾向和社会背景方面存在很大差异。我们讨论了对小学生科学 EB 发展和推广的影响。