An Investigation to Determine of the Tourism Students’ Epistemological Beliefs in Turkey

Abstract

The main purpose of this research is to determine epistemological belief level and whetherthe epistemological beliefs differences according to gender, education department, classlevel and graduated high school type variable of the students receiving education in tourismfaculty in Turkey. General survey model were used in this study and the population of thethe research comprise 426 students who educated in tourism faculty in a state university inTurkey academic year of the 2017-2018 and 218 usable responses from students has beenobtained. In order to get the required data, “Personal Information Form” and“Epistemological Belief Questionnaire” were used. “Epistemological Belief Questionnaire”(EBQ), developed by Schommer (1990) and adopted intoTurkish culture by Deryakulu andBüyüköztürk (2002). In this study, students who study tourism at a state university have116,4174 total score from Epistemological Belief Questionairre. This score shows thatepistemological belief levels of students are underdeveloped. At the end of research, thefollowing hypothesis: “there are significant differences between total epistemologicalbeliefs and gender variable, education department variable, class level variable andgraduated high school type variable of participants” have been refused.