This paper explores the importance of student teachers' epistemological beliefs in the process of learning to teach. It examines the problematic nature of the conceptual basis of the field and then reports on a series of studies undertaken in Hong Kong to develop a set of scales to map student teachers' epistemological beliefs. By exploring the assumptions and methods used by Schommer to measure such beliefs it is concluded that the basis of her empirical work may be questionable. Adopting her 63 questionnaire and the critique of Hofer and Pintrich the paper reports on studies attempting to map the epistemological beliefs of Hong Kong teacher education students. Conclusions about the assumptions underpinning the study of epistemological beliefs and cross cultural analysis of such beliefs are considered. Additionally, implications of the work for teacher education are considered.

This paper outlines the development of a scale for investigating Hong Kong student teachers epistemological beliefs and the application of that scale. The scale has its genesis in the work of Schommer (1989, 1990) in North America. She proposed five theoretical dimensions of epistemological beliefs viz Simple Knowledge, Certain Knowledge, Fixed Ability, Quick Learning and Omniscient Authority and developed a 63 item questionnaire to investigate these. In subsequent factor analysis she identified only four such dimensions- with omniscient authority not identified. The scale developed by the authors incorporated dimensions labelled as Authority/ expert Knowledge, Certainty Knowledge, Innate/Fixed Ability, and Learning Process/Effort. This scale was used to investigate relationships of these four epistemological dimensions with age, gender, electives studied and course type. There was a significant difference between the Chinese and English course students and this is discussed in terms of the possible effect of traditional Chinese/Confucian culture and the impact of western culture and philosophy on the Hong Kong Chinese students.