A Longitudinal Study of Elementary Pre‐service Teachers' Mathematics Beliefs and Content Knowledge

Abstract

This study investigated the mathematics beliefs and content knowledge of 103 elementary pre‐service teachers in a developmental teacher preparation program that included a two course mathematics methods sequence. Pre‐service teachers' pedagogical beliefs became more cognitively‐oriented during the teacher preparation program with these changes occurring during the two methods courses. Pedagogical beliefs remained stable during student teaching. The pre‐service teachers also significantly increased their personal efficacy for teaching mathematics throughout the program with these shifts occurring across both methods courses and into student teaching. Pedagogical beliefs and teaching efficacy beliefs were not related at the beginning of the program, but, in general, were positively related throughout the program. In addition, the pre‐service teachers' pedagogical beliefs were positively related to their specialized content knowledge for teaching mathematics at the end of the program.

Reciprocal Relationships between Mathematics Anxiety and Attitude towards Mathematics in Elementary Students

“…The findings revealed that higher levels of attitude towards mathematics predicted subsequent lower levels of anxiety. In the same way, results of the previous studies revealed that students who had strong attitude towards mathematics were more likely to feel less anxious about mathematics (Briley, 2012;Swars et al, 2007;Swars et al, 2009). This finding suggested that both anxiety and attitude could be effective components for the elementary students' learning of mathematics.…”

¿Qué creencias sostienen estudiantes de pedagogía, profesorado en servicio y personal académico formador de docentes, en Chile, sobre la pobreza?

“…Sin embargo, las creencias sobre la matemática han sido recogidas por numerosos estudios tanto con el profesorado como con estudiantes de pedagogía. En general, el profesorado considera la matemática como un conocimiento estático y estable (Zakaria y Musiran, 2010), que se entrega mediante presentaciones organizadas y clases expositivas (Swars, Hart, Smith, Smith y Tolar, 2007). La matemática es concebida como una disciplina con reglas y fórmulas que deben ser aprendidas por memorización.…”

Teacher Efficacy as a Multigroup Model Using Latent Class Analysis

“…The items on the two scales rated ranged from 1, strongly disagree, to 5, strongly agree. Items 3,6,8,15,17,18,19, and 21 are negatively worded and were reverse coded for analysis. More information about the development of the instrument and the scoring can be found in [2].…”

“…While the results of teacher efficacy are consistent, the way in which teacher efficacy is measured is inconsistent. One school of thought is to view teacher efficacy as a homogeneous phenomenon where teachers are viewed as having a common belief about their ability to teach as measured on a continuum from low to high efficacy [3,[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. This approach is very common in measuring attitudes and beliefs and suggests that those with low or high attitudes or beliefs will have some effect on the academic outcomes of students.…”