Personal epistemological beliefs, one's beliefs about the nature and acquisition of knowledge, and their role in the learning process have become a focus of a growing body of research in recent years. Studies show that a person's epistemological beliefs play an important role in their intellectual development as well as in learning specific subjects. The range of labels to describe personal epistemology include epistemological beliefs, reflective judgement, ways of knowing, epistemological reflection, epistemological theories, beliefs and resources. Research in personal epistemology looks into ways of knowing, focusing on the nature of knowledge and beliefs about learning. William Perry was a key early researcher in the field of epistemological beliefs. Following on from Perry's seminal work in this area, Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger and Tarule took up the study of women's epistemological beliefs. The Women's Ways of Knowing, as they describe their work, concerned "how women know what they know" and identified particular ways of knowing that women cultivated and valued, building on Perry's scheme of cognitive development by including further categories emerging from participants' reports. Women's Ways of Knowing (WWK) proposed five epistemological perspectives by which women know and view the world. These are (1) silence; (2) subjective knowing; (3) received knowing; (4) procedural knowing; and (5) constructed knowing. (Contains 1 table.)