Browsing by Author "Suonpää, Maarit"

The main goal of this study was to investigate what kinds of epistemological beliefs about learning Mensa’s members have. I wanted to find out, if people with exceptionally high intelligence quotient represent so called sophisticated epistemological beliefs when it comes to learning and knowledge. Previous studies have shown, that these sophisticated beliefs about learning correlate with school achievements and higher level thinking. I’m also investigating does person’s sex, educational backround, age or the time they’ve been Mensa’s members affect these epistemological beliefs about learning. Based on the previous studies, I argue that Mensa’s members have sophisticated epistemological beliefs about learning and knowledge. This study’s target group, the highly intelligence persons, were all official members of Finland’s Mensa and so their intelligence quotient must be over 130. The data for this study was collected by digital questionnare, on Finland’s Mensa’s official Facebook-page and on their own web site. In February 2016 alltogether 148 people answered to this questionnare, 88 of them were male, 58 of them were female. The results of this study indicate that Mensa’s members represent usually growth model and have sophisticated beliefs about learning. They believed especially in taking effort in learning, which has correlated in previous studies with school achievements. Contrary to my hypothesis, women believed more strongly that knowledge is complex and women were more critical of knowledge’s reliance of authority. The youngest ones of my target group had more naive beliefs about the simplicity of knowledge, than older answerers had. Sophisticated beliefs about learning have an important role in school achievements but also in exceptional intelligence, and therefore it’s important that teachers and educators recognize and endorse their students epistemological beliefs.