Can the Study of Students' Epistemological Beliefs and Epistemic Match Help Us to Explore the Disciplinary Nature of Education Studies?

In the United Kingdom, education studies degree courses offer students with a range of career plans both inside and outside the formal education system, a chance to study the foundations of education. The disciplinary nature of education studies has been debated from a variety of theoretical perspectives. This article explores the usefulness of the concept of personal epistemological beliefs in exploring the issue of disciplinarity in education studies and contributing to that debate. An empirical study utilizing measures of personal epistemological beliefs and epistemic match sought to establish whether students on an education studies degree course in the United Kingdom took an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary approach to applying the disciplines of education studies to their assignments. The results show students apparently alternating between these two approaches and thus highlighting some of the potential of personal epistemological beliefs in exploring the nature of education studies and other similar courses.