2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Understanding students’ epistemic beliefs (EB) – how they perceive knowledge and learning – is crucial for effective teaching. However, traditional tools like the Epistemological Beliefs Assessment for Physical Science (EBAPS) may not fully capture the beliefs of culturally diverse students, particularly those from non-Western backgrounds. This study examines Chinese university students’ epistemic beliefs and highlights the need for culturally responsive adaptations to both pedagogy and BE assessment tools such as the EBAPS.

We present data from one Chinese university showing that, while overall EBAPS scores are comparable to those of U.S. students, Chinese students score significantly lower on the Evolving Knowledge and Source of Ability to Learn axes. Additionally, weaker inter-item correlations among certain items suggest the current EBAPS may not accurately reflect Chinese students’ EB.

To address these gaps, we conducted interviews and introduced new survey items designed to capture naïve dialecticism – a cognitive pattern emphasizing contradiction, change, and holism – which influences Chinese learners’ perspectives on knowledge and learning. We show that students’ limited understanding of epistemology and learning science may contribute to the belief that scientific knowledge is largely fixed and that success in science depends more on innate ability than on strategic effort. Moreover, the holistic and moderate stance shaped by naïve dialecticism may obscure inter-item correlations related to the structure of scientific knowledge.