Epistemology, by definition, is the theory of knowledge of a discipline, especially with regard to its methods, validity and scope. Physics education, both the content and methodology, has been evolving over the past few years. New methods have been developed to improve content understanding but improving students' epistemologies (their conceptions of the discipline of physics) is still a challenge. If we as educators hope to improve attitudes toward, interest in and perceptions of physics (and ultimately student understanding), we can no longer ignore epistemological belief in the classroom. In this presentation and paper I shed light on the research that has been done and is currently underway to improve epistemologies. I offer suggestions on how to improve students' conceptions of physics at the high school and college level. I have also included questions that can be utilized to improve student epistemologies and resources for more information on the topic.
Please find some example questions here to tap students' epistemological resources according to David Hammer and Andrew Elby (from University of Maryland) in their paper "Tapping epistemological resources for learning physics" (published in Journal of the Learning Sciences).