Authority, in learning situations, has been widely defined as the role of teacher, or parents, ignoring the person by whom knowledge is delivered. This research was carried out to examine the influence of this type of authority on the relations between students' beliefs and their judgments of content. 160 Iranian college students were randomly divided into two equal groups. Then, both groups were assessed for their beliefs about sources of values. In the next step, two scenarios of the same content were distributed to the two groups; one scenario was attributed to a highly respected religious person in Islam and another to a famous nonreligious psychoanalyst. College students then were asked to judge the ideas proposed in the content. Analysis showed that the relations between students' beliefs and their judgments were different for the two groups. Pending confirmation by further study, some educational recommendations may be offered.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AlexanderP. A.SchallertD. L.HareV. C. (1991) Coming to terms: how researchers in learning and literacy talk about knowledge. Review of Educational Research, 61, 315–343.
2.
AmesC. (1992) Classrooms: goals, structures, and student motivation. Journal of Educational Psychology, 84, 261–271.
3.
AschS. E. (1955) Opinions and social pressures. Scientific American, 193, 31–35.
4.
BennetC.NiggleT.StageF. (1990) Preservice multicultural teacher education: predictors of student readiness. Teaching and Teacher Education, 6, 243–254.
5.
BlassT. (2000) Invited response to review of “Obedience to authority: current perspectives on the Milgram paradigm”. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 70, 624–625.
6.
BlumenfeldP. C.MergendollerJ.PuroP. (1992) Translating motivation into thoughtfulness. In MarshallH. (Ed.), Redefining learning. Norwood, NS: Ablex. Pp. 207–239.
7.
BokorosM. A.GoldsteinM. B.SweeneyM. M. (1992) Common factors in five measures of cognitive style. Current Psychology: Research and Reviews, 11, 99–109.
DalgleishT.PowerM. (Eds.) (1999) Handbook of cognition and emotion. West Sussex, Eng.: Wiley.
10.
HaydukL. A. (1989) Structural equation modeling with LISREL: essentials and advances. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Univer. Press.
11.
HoferB. K.PintrichP. R. (1997) The development of epistemological theories: beliefs about knowledge and knowing and their relation to knowing. Review of Educational Research, 67, 88–140.
12.
HutsebautD. (1996) Post-critical belief: a new approach to the religious attitude problem. Journal of Empirical Theology, 9, 48–66.
13.
HutsebautD. (1997) Identity statuses, ego integration, God representation and religious cognitive styles. Journal of Empirical Theology, 10, 39–54.
14.
KhayyerM. (1997) A study of the relationships between some socioeconomic indexes and the academic achievement among a group of freshman high school students in the new educational system. Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 12, 77–113.
15.
KitchenerK. S. (1986) The reflective judgment model: characteristics, evidence, and measurement. In MinesR. A.KitchnerK. S. (Eds.), Adult cognitive development. New York: Praeger. Pp. 76–91.
16.
KruglanskiA. W. (1989) Lay epistemics and human knowledge: cognitive and motivational bases. New York: Plenum.
17.
KruglanskiA. W. (1990) Motivations for judging and knowing: implications for causal attribution. In HigginsE. T.SorrentinoR. M. (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition. New York: Guilford. Pp. 333–369.
18.
KruglanskiA. W.WebsterD. A. (1996) Motivated closing of the mind: seizing and freezing. Psychological Review, 103, 263–283.
19.
KuhnD. (1996) Thinking as argument. In SmithL. (Ed.), Critical readings on Piaget. London: Routledge. Pp. 120–146.
20.
McInerneyD. M.HinkleyJ.EttenS. V. (1998) Aboriginal, Anglo, and immigrant Australian students' motivational beliefs about personal academic success: are there cultural differences?Journal of Educational Psychology, 90, 621–629.
21.
McInerneyD. M.RocheL. A.McInerneyV.MarshH. W. (1997) Cultural perspectives of school motivation: the relevance and application of goal theory. American Educational Research Journal, 31, 207–236.
22.
MilgramS. (1983) Obedience to authority: an experimental view. New York: Harper/Collins.
23.
NieddererH. (1987) A teaching strategy based on students' alternative frameworks: theoretical concept and examples. In NovakJ. D. (Ed.), Proceedings of the Second International Seminar Misconceptions and Educational Strategies in Science & Mathematics. New York: Cornell Univer. Press. Pp. 360–367.
24.
OsborneR.FreybergP. (1985) Learning in science: the implications of children's science. Auckland, NZ: Heinemann.
25.
PaulsenM. B.FeldmanK. A. (1999) Student motivation and epistemological beliefs. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 78, 77–80.
26.
PintrichP. R.MarxR. W.BoyleR. A. (1993) Beyond cold conceptual change: the role of motivational beliefs and classroom contextual factors in the processes of conceptual change. Review of Educational Research, 63, 167–199.
27.
SchommerM. (1990) Effects of beliefs about the nature of knowledge on comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 85, 406–411.
28.
SchommerM. (1998) The influence of age and schooling of epistemological beliefs. The British Journal of Educational Psychology, 68, 551–562.
29.
SchommerM.CrouseA.RhodesN. (1992) Epistemological beliefs and mathematical text comprehension: believing it is simple does not make it so. Journal of Educational Psychology, 84, 435–443.
30.
SchommerM.WalkerK. (1995) Are epistemological beliefs similar across domains?Journal of Educational Psychology, 87, 424–432.
31.
TabatabaeeS. M. H. (1971) [Philosophical fundamentals of realism.] Tehran, Iran: Dar Al-Elm. [in Farsi]
32.
ZimmermanB. J. (1998) Academic studying and the development of personal skill: a self-regulatory perspective. Educational Psychologist, 33, 73–86.
