Identifying Statistical Concepts Associated with High and Low Levels of Self-Efficacy to Teach Statistics in Middle Grades

Abstract

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New Standards Require Teaching More Statistics

“…Areas that PSMTs felt least confident to teach include selecting appropriate graphical representations, measures of association, two-way tables, and ideas of formal inference using simulation. PSMTs’ confidence to teach creating graphical representations and computing measures, and lack of confidence to teach interpreting measures of association, is consistent with previous research (Harrell-Williams et al, 2015). These findings provide a clear focus on areas that should be emphasized in courses that could strengthen PSMTs’ preparedness to teach statistics.…”

“…An earlier version of this instrument with 26 items aligned with Levels A and B of GAISE was validated to measure K-8 preservice teachers’ self-efficacy for teaching statistics (Harrell-Williams, Sorto, Pierce, Lesser, & Murphy, 2014b). The high school version contains the 26 items aligned to GAISE Levels A and B, and an additional 18 items validated and aligned to GAISE Level C (Harrell-Williams & Pierce, 2015; Harrell-Williams et al, 2014a). 2 In addition to an overall score, the instrument provides subscale scores that correspond to Levels A (11 items), B (15 items), and C (18 items).…”

“…This requires teachers to be comfortable with various approaches, representations, and results that students may use during a statistical investigation, and understanding how to use technological tools to solve statistical problems and to teach statistical topics through investigations (Lee & Hollebrands, 2011). In addition, we take a holistic approach to preparation to teach statistics that encompasses attention to how and why PSMTs may believe statistics is difficult and how this may impact their perceptions about their ability to teach statistics content (e.g., Fitzmaurice, Leavy, & Hannigan, 2014; Harrell-Williams, Sorto, Pierce, Lesser, & Murphy, 2015).…”

Examining How Online Professional Development Impacts Teachers’ Beliefs About Teaching Statistics

“…However, teachers may also feel that reasoning with context-rich data and uncertainty in statistical claims can make statistics difficult to learn and teach (e.g., Lovett & Lee, 2017;Leavy, Hannigan, & Fitzmaurice, 2013). One's confidence to teach statistics is then influenced by beliefs and perspectives about statistics, prior experiences in learning and teaching statistics, and understanding of statistical content (Lovett & Lee, 2017;Harrell-Williams, Sorto, Pierce, Lesser, & Murphy, 2015).…”

Development and validation of the algebra teachers’ self‐efficacy instrument: Assessment of algebra teachers’ knowledge and personal teaching efficacy

“…The incorporation of both content knowledge and personal teaching efficacy for algebra provides a more robust measure of teacher self‐efficacy for teachers who teach algebra. The ATSEI's design improves upon previous teacher self‐efficacy instruments that focused on general teacher self‐efficacy (Tschannen‐Moran & Hoy, ), general mathematics teacher self‐efficacy for elementary (Enochs, Smith, & Huinker, ), and those teacher self‐efficacy instruments that focused just on content such as statistics (Harrell‐Williams, Sorto, Pierce, Lesser, & Murphy, ). The use of student and teacher standards for initially selecting the content is a first in the field of TE research and two rounds of EFA contribute to the quality of the instrument.…”