Session Information
99 ERC SES 07 B, Didactics - Learning and Teaching
Paper Session
Contribution
In an increasingly complex and uncertain world, proficiency in numeracy skills provides students essential cognitive tools to interpret evidence, evaluate risk and rewards, and make informed decisions. Thus, effective numeracy instruction offers students hope by empowering them with capacities for reasoning and problem solving vital for personal agency and civic participation. This highlights an imperative within teacher education programs worldwide. However, teaching numeracy poses significant challenges for many preservice teachers. Specifically, conceptual ambiguity regarding numeracy presents difficulties for both teacher educators and future teachers across many countries. These difficulties are further compounded by growing attention given to numeracy in educational policies and standards in places like the UK, US, Canada and Australia. These policies increasingly mandate that all subject area teachers take responsibility for teaching numeracy concepts relevant to their disciplines. For example, in the UK, the National Numeracy Strategy instituted a requirement that numeracy be explicitly addressed across all subjects in primary and secondary schools. Similarly, countries like Australia and Canada have introduced standardized literacy and numeracy tests for entrance into many teacher preparation programs. However, international research indicates personal numeracy competence does not necessarily equate to pedagogical expertise in teaching numeracy. Furthermore, pedagogical knowledge alone does not necessarily translate into positive teacher beliefs about their own motivation and self-efficacy to teach numeracy. Extensive previous research reinforces that these affective variables exert significant influence on student numeracy outcomes. This highlights an imperative within teacher education programs worldwide to intertwine building content expertise with efforts to cultivate positive teacher beliefs. Presently, limited data has emerged regarding pre-service teachers’ own motivation and self-efficacy to teach numeracy across different subjects and age groups. Additional perspectives are needed to evaluate teacher educators’ views on best practices for developing pre-service teachers’ beliefs and competencies. Further comparative investigation of the roots of pre-service teachers’ self-beliefs and motivations towards teaching numeracy is therefore vital and could illuminate improvements to initial teacher education involving numeracy curriculum and pedagogy internationally.
The present research examines preservice teachers’ levels of motivation and self-efficacy for teaching numeracy using a mixed methods design. Quantitative findings derived from a newly developed survey instrument demonstrated variability in levels of motivation and self-efficacy beliefs among 729 teacher candidates. Factor analysis indicated that both motivation and self-efficacy to teach numeracy represented valid and reliable factors reflective of Goos’ rich interpretation of numeracy. Subsequent interviews with nine teacher educators yielded qualitative themes such as the significance of previous mathematical education and experience, and the role of teacher educators in fostering critical thinking of pre-service teachers. Integrating the quantitative and qualitative results highlights the need for sustained efforts to understand and improve teacher motivation and self-efficacy to teach numeracy within teacher education. Further research is needed to continue to improve the reliability and validity of the newly developed measure in conjunction with longitudinal and intervention studies. Overall, findings provide additional knowledge to inform ongoing program development and empirical inquiry regarding the field of numeracy teaching within initial teacher education.
Method
The research design employed in this study can be referred to as a mixed-methods approach, using methods that capture both quantitative and qualitative data. The research design can also be described as a descriptive cross-sectional study rather than an explanatory or experimental one. In this study, data collection through the survey questionnaire and interviews occurred at a single point in time, providing a snapshot of pre-service teacher motivation and confidence levels and the perspectives of teacher educators. This approach does not involve experimental manipulation or intervention, nor does it seek to establish causal relationships or explanations for observed phenomena. Furthermore, the research design emphasizes the measurement and description of pre-service teacher motivation and confidence, rather than attempting to manipulate variables to determine causation. Thus, the study's primary focus is on describing and understanding the current state of pre-service teacher motivation and confidence in numeracy instruction, making it consistent with a descriptive cross-sectional research design. The research can also be divided into two perspectives. The first perspective was gained through the development and administration of a survey questionnaire designed to measure levels of pre-service teacher motivation and confidence to teach numeracy. The survey instrument was crafted based on a thorough review of relevant literature and subjectd to exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to ensure validity and reliability. Data collected through the survey provided quantitative insights into the levels of motivation and confidence among pre-service teachers. The second perspective was developed from qualitative interviews with teacher educators using thematic analysis. These semi-structured interviews were conducted to gain an additional understanding of the nature of and factors that influence pre-service teacher motivation and confidence in teaching numeracy. The combination of these two research methods—quantitative survey data and qualitative interviews with teacher educators—allowed for a comparative examination of pre-service teacher motivation and confidence in numeracy teaching. By integrating both perspectives, this research design ensures a more robust and nuanced exploration of pre-service teacher motivation and confidence to teach numeracy, contributing to a deeper understanding of this critical aspect of teacher preparation.
Expected Outcomes
The main contribution of this research has been the development of a new measure of motivation and confidence to teach numeracy. Having been developed through two successive studies, the developed measure achieved very acceptable validity and reliability data. Its factor structure for both the motivation and confidence scales revealed support for a conceptualisation of numeracy teaching in broad alignment with Goos’ 21st century rich model of numeracy. The descriptive data and associations between factors contributed to an understanding of the nature and structure of numeracy teaching. The measure that resulted from the first two studies provided the pre-service teacher perspective. The third study interviewed both mathematics and non-mathematics background teacher educators on their thoughts regarding pre-service teachers’ motivation and confidence to teach numeracy. Again, given the lack of literature on this issue, this research has produced insights helpful for the improvement of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programs. The resulting themes portray the extent to which teacher educators see their job as developing pre-service teachers’ motivation and confidence to teach numeracy. This also gives voice to what such educators see as problematic and challenging thereby offering suggestions for potential policy or educational initiatives in ITE. The three studies have therefore contributed knowledge to an understanding of pre-service teachers’ levels of motivation and confidence to teach numeracy. Furthermore, when taken together, they form an interesting and perhaps more nuanced and rigorous picture. Important similarities and differences can be seen when comparing the pre-service teacher and teacher educator perspectives. In particular, the importance of mathematics education was highlighted by both. Overall, this research has contributed both conceptually and empirically to the issue of numeracy teaching in ITE and has therefore provided an additional basis from which to articulate future recommendations for research and practice.
References
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