The Relationships between Middle School Teachers’ Epistemological Beliefs and Learner Autonomy Support Behaviours: The Role of Teaching-Learning Conceptions as the Mediating Variable

Abstract

This study aims to reveal the predictive and explanatory relationships amongst the middle school teachers’ epistemological beliefs, their teaching-learning conceptions and their learner autonomy support behaviours on the suggested model. Designed as a multi-factorial complex predictive correlational study, this paper employs 345 middle school teachers actively teaching various subject in the center of Manisa province in 2017-2018 academic year. “Epistemic Belief Inventory” was used to determine teachers’ epistemological beliefs, while “Teaching-Learning Conceptions Scale” was utilised to determine their teaching–learning approaches. On the other hand, "Learner Autonomy Support Scale” was used to find out the participants’ learner autonomy support behaviors. The structural equation modeling was utilised to test the suggested model. The findings have indicated that middle school teachers’ sophisticated epistemological beliefs predict constructivist teaching-learning conceptions and learning autonomy support behaviours in a meaningful way positively while predicting the traditional teaching –learning conceptions negatively. Constructivist teaching-learning conceptions predict learner autonomy support behaviours meaningfully and positively. It was seen that there is not any relationship between traditional teaching learning conceptions and learner autonomy support behaviours. Another significant result is that constructivist teaching-learning conceptions have a mediating effect on sophisticated epistemological beliefs and learner autonomy support behaviours. The results reveal that teachers’ epistemological beliefs have a direct influence on their teaching learning conceptions and learner autonomy support behaviours.