شبكة المعلومات العربية التربوية

The present study investigated the effects of gender and students` academic levels on their epistemological beliefs towards learning English. A total of 547 of English-major students at a Saudi University, including 184 males and 363 females whose levels ranged from 1st to 7th participated in this study. The primary aim of the study was to explore whether there were significant differences in the epistemological beliefs system among two learners groups according to variables such as gender and academic levels. Students were asked to answer questions on the Belief Questionnaire. Students answered each item statement using a 4-point Likert-scale that ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). Results were statistically analyzed using, descriptive statistics, ANOVA and the t-test. Analysis results showed that there were differences between English-major students according to their academic levels in their beliefs in subscale 2 (beliefs about a traditional orientation to learning English) and the total score. The results also indicated that there were no differences between males and females towards learning English in their epistemological beliefs except in subscale 3 (the beliefs about the quality and sufficiency of classroom instruction for learning English) and in total scores. Findings in general indicated that all the participants had epistemological positive beliefs towards learning English. These positive epistemological beliefs help the students to learn easily and achieve high GPA. Such results also bring to the fore implications that help the teachers draw suitable strategies with their students inside the classroom. (Published abstract)