Exploring Relationships between Presage Variables of Florida Preservice Agricultural Education Teachers Related to Teaching Contextualized Mathematics

Exploring the Disconnect Between Mathematics Ability and Mathematics Efficacy Among Preservice Agricultural Education Teachers

“…First, participants indicated it had been a long time since they last took a mathematics course, with a majority of participants not having a mathematics course since their freshman year in college. This timeframe is similar to Stripling and Roberts (2013c). However, the participants felt with a refresher course, practice, or by re-teaching themselves, they would be prepared to teach mathematics found in the school-based agriculture education curricula.…”

“…Correspondingly, Swars (2005) stated, positive past mathematics experiences translates to a high sense of mathematics teacher efficacy in preservice teachers. Other researchers have also found mathematical performance influences mathematics efficacy (Hackett & Bentz, 1989;Stripling & Roberts, 2013c;Usher, 2009), and observing a modeler of effective teaching improves teaching efficacy (Ebmeier, 1994;Protheroe, 2008).…”

“…Four studies (Stripling & Roberts, 2012a, 2013a, 2013b, 2013c were found in the agricultural education literature related to mathematics efficacy and mathematics teaching efficacy. Stripling and Roberts (2012a, 2013a, 2013b found preservice teachers at the University of Florida were efficacious in personal mathematics efficacy and moderately efficacious in mathematics teaching efficacy.…”

“…The other study identified, Stripling and Roberts (2013c), explored relationships between mathematics teaching efficacy and personal mathematics teaching efficacy and background characteristics of preservice agricultural education teachers. They found the following: (a) males possessed slightly higher mathematics teaching efficacy, (b) males and females possessed similar personal mathematics efficacy, (c) personal mathematics efficacy increased in regard to completing higher levels of mathematics in high school, but not when completing higher levels in college, (d) higher levels of mathematics in high school and college had little effect on mathematics teaching efficacy, (e) preservice teachers with higher grades in their last mathematics course had higher mathematics teaching efficacy and personal mathematics efficacy, (f) preservice teachers who completed a mathematics course more recently had lower mathematics teaching efficacy and personal mathematics efficacy, (g) preservice teachers 24 or older had lower mathematics teaching efficacy and personal mathematics efficacy than those 20-23 years old, and (h) preservice teachers with higher GPAs had higher personal mathematics efficacy and mathematics teaching efficacy.…”