| Mathematics teacher is the key figure of the mathematics curriculum reform. The teachers’ Epistemological beliefs play a vital filtering role in understanding and implementing the mathematics curriculum. Epistemological belief system is just an entry point to understand and promote the professional development of mathematics teachers. To date, there is a considerable deficiency of domestic mathematics education research on teachers’ epistemological belief system. And there is lack of explanation for the mathematics teachers’ conception-practice inconsistency either. From the practice of teacher education, mathematics teacher education is particularly lack of the scientific theory leading. To this end, this study attempts to do a more in-depth exploration of the psychological mechanisms mathematics teachers’ epistemological belief system affect teacher self-regulation, based on structural studies in the epistemological belief system and self-regulation capabilities in teaching. To some extent, this study is inspired by Zhang J.’work (2010), in which she had already proved the intermediary role of teacher self-regulation capabilities between the concept of creative teaching behavior and its practice. This research is expected to enhance the explanatory power for the mathematics teachers’ conception-practice inconsistency via introducing epistemological belief system and self-regulation teaching. And is also hoped to promote the research work on teachers’ epistemological belief system.We mainly used theoretical speculation and quantitative research methods. The self-made Middle School Mathematics Teachers Epistemological Belief System Scale (MTEBS) and existing Self-regulation Teaching Scale (SRT) are the tools for collecting data in our study. There was a series of processes, including the theoretical dimensions design, item evaluation, pilot study and exploratory factor analysis, retest and reliability-validity analysis, had been implemented before the MTEBS scale became validity. Meanwhile, we have done the modification and reliability-validity analysis to the pre-existing SRT scale. The data collected used for model fit testing via structural equation modeling and other kinds of statistic analysis.The main results are as follows:1. The structure of mathematics teachers’ epistemological belief system. The mathematics teachers’ epistemological belief system is a complex embedded system, which contains two sub-systems about domain pedagogy beliefs and teacher-student beliefs. The former one has three dimensions, including mathematics knowledge, learning and teaching epistemology beliefs. And the teacher-student beliefs system concludes epistemology beliefs about students and teacher themselves.2. The structure of mathematics teachers’ self-regulation ability in teaching. This ability can be divided into four dimensions, such as planning and preparation before class, evaluation and feedback in class, control and adjusting in class and the introspection after class.3. The overall level of epistemological belief system is tending to be advanced and sophisticated, and the ability of teaching self-regulation is also above average. Comparatively, the high school mathematics teachers have more sophisticated beliefs about students and themselves, and they owned higher self-regulation ability in the evaluation and feedback dimension.4. The epistemological belief system effects on self-regulation in teaching:(1) The epistemological beliefs about math knowledge have positive prediction on the in-classs control and adjustion ablity, but negative prediction on evaluation and feedback dimension.While the teachers have more backward epistemological beliefs about sources, uncertainty and the value of mathematical knowledge, their adjustion and control ablities are worse. On the contrary, they have showed a strong sensitivity of classroom enviroment and students’ reaction.(2) Epistemic beliefs about mathematics learning has a significant effect on the after-school introspection. Teachers’ review and evaluation on teaching have been greatly influenced by their own beliefs about the nature, way, speed and impact factors of mathematics learning.(3) The epistemological beliefs about mathematics teaching have significant effect on the pre-plan dimension of self-regulated teaching. The more sophisticated the beliefs about mathematics teaching, the stronger self-regulation ability they have during the pre-plan process.(4) Epistemic beliefs about teachers themselves have a direct impact on classroom assessment and feedback dimension. Mathematics teachers who owned better self-efficacy, more democratic teaching style, more fully understanding of self-professional development, are inclined to get more information about changes of various elements during teaching classroom, as well as strong ability to examine and inspect all aspects of teaching and learning activities.5. Epistemoglogical belief system and self-regulation ability in teaching among different groups:(1) There exists gender differences in the epistemological belief systems. But there is no significant difference in self-regulation ability between female and male mathematics teachers. Female teachers have better epistemoglogical beliefs in three dimensions, such as mathematical knowledge, learning, and pedagogical beliefs.(2) The school type disparities are not significant between those middle school mathematics teachers. Techears from provincial key middle school have more sophisticated and constructivist beliefs about math teaching and learning. And they also pay more attention to the sensitivity and critical of teaching situation and responses from their students, as well as the review and evaluation of their own teaching.(3) The honored teachers have more confident with their teaching abilities, more emphasis on their own professional development, and treat students more in the light of their development. But the difference between these two groups is not significant. And there is no significant difference between honored and non-honored teachers in self-regulation abilities either.(4) There is significant difference between novice teachers and veteran teachers in their epistemological belief about mathematics learning. The novice teachers’ beliefs about the nature, way, speed, and impact factors of mathematics learning are more sophisticated than veteran teachers. But their self-regulation capability difference is not significant, although the novice teachers got higher scores in all four dimensions. What’s more is that those honored veteran teachers’self-regulation ability is greatly influenced by their own epistemological beliefs. Compared to those honored veteran teachers, their non-honored peers have weak connections between epistemological beliefs and self-regulation in teaching. For both novice and veteran teachers, the beliefs about themselves have predictive power for their self-regulation level of control and adjusting in teaching. And their self-regulation abilities have comparatively tighter connections with the beliefs about mathematics knowledge, learning and pedagogy.(5) There are Significant differences exsit in mathematics teachers’ epistemological belief system among different teaching-year groups. With the growth of seniority, teachers’ epistemological beliefs’ maturity is first increasing and then decreasing. The teachers who have 6-10 years teaching experience possess the most sophisticated epistemological beliefs, especially in the mathematics learning, mathematics teaching, students and teacher themselves dimensions. However, the level of epistemological beliefs about mathematics knowledge is relatively stable, there is no similar peak at 6-10 teaching-year group, and the overall change is comparetively small.(6) Unlike the epistemological belief system, the high school mathematics teachers’ teaching self-regulation capability does not exist such significant differences among different teaching-year groups. However, with the growth of seniority and accumulation of teaching experience, high school mathematics teachers’ self-regulation abilities in teaching overall upward trend. Their teaching self-regulation capabilities improve faster in three dimensions, such as planning and preparation before class, classroom evaluation and feedback, and after class introspection.
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