Abstract:

The main objective of this study is to investigate the epistemological beliefs of prospective music teachers. The differences between epistemological beliefs and gender, grade level, literacy levels of mother and father, perceived parental attitudes were also investigated. The sample of the study consisted of 274 prospective music teachers from three different teacher training faculties. The Epistemological Beliefs Questionnaire developed by Schommer (1990) and adapted into Turkish by Deryakulu and Öztürk (2005) was used to collect the research data. The main results are given below: (1) Epistemological belief levels of prospective music teachers were found to be underdeveloped; (2) Female prospective music teachers beliefs that learning depends on effort were found more developed than property; (3) No differences were found between epistemological beliefs and education levels of parents; (4) Prospective music teachers who perceived their parents attitudes/family environment democratic were found to be more developed/mature epistemological belief that learning depends on effort. The results were discussed in terms of its implications and the development of teacher training programs to support the matured epistemological beliefs was proposed in terms of music teacher training.

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