Investigating the epistemic beliefs of first-generation and continuing generation students in a South African university

Abstract

Epistemic beliefs, or beliefs about the nature of knowledge and learning, play a crucial role in students’ academic performance and how they believe knowledge is acquired. Despite extensive research on personal epistemology, there is a notable limitation in studies investigating whether family educational history/background influences the development of epistemic beliefs and how this subsequently affects adjusting to tertiary education. For this reason, this report investigated the epistemic beliefs of first-generation and continuing-generation university students using a quantitative non-experimental, cross-sectional, ex post facto design. The sample was taken from first-year undergraduate students enrolled in Psychology at the University of the Witwatersrand. The students were given an online survey, which consisted of four sections that collected information about demographics, socio-economic status, and epistemic beliefs. The study yielded a total of 309 responses, which were adjusted to N = 244 after the exclusion criterion was applied. Factor analyses were conducted on the DFEBQ and the CAEB, which confirmed the underlying structure of the measures as proposed in previous studies, with slightly different item loadings. The main research objective was to investigate if there was a difference in epistemic beliefs between first-generation and continuing generation students, and the second objective was to investigate if socio-economic status moderated the relationship between generational status and epistemic beliefs. Results indicated that there was no statistically significant difference between first-generation and continuing generation students’ epistemic beliefs. Furthermore, socio-economic status did not significantly influence the relationship between generational status and epistemic beliefs. However, an ANOVA analysis showed that there was a statistically significant main effect between socio-economic status and generational status on one dimension of the DFEBQ, Certainty/ Simplicity of knowledge. The absence of a statistically significant difference in epistemic beliefs between the two groups suggests that students from different family educational backgrounds may enter higher education with broadly similar conceptions about knowledge and knowing. One significant main effect highlights that socio-economic status is associated with epistemic beliefs without involving generation status. Limitations and recommendations for future research are offered.