Personal epistemology of psychology, theology and pharmacy students:: a comparative study

This study examines interdisciplinary differences in final-year psychology, pharmacy and theology students' academic thinking and personal epistemology. The semi-structured interviews (n = 52) were analysed using content analysis to assess students' individual perspectives of the cognitive process of thinking, knowing and reasoning. The three disciplines were chosen to represent professionally oriented programmes in the research-intensive University of Helsinki. The comparative analysis revealed that students' epistemological beliefs interacted with the students' disciplinary environment, i.e. with the characteristics of the curriculum and the nature of the discipline. Additionally, the results indicated that the academic practices applied by teachers contributed to the development of students' personal epistemology. Explanations and practical implications of these results are discussed.