Concerns about the recruitment and retention of secondary school mathematics teachers in England, the provision made for student teacher learning on pre-service, or Initial Teacher Education (ITE) courses, and the quality of mathematics teaching in schools date back to at least the Cockcroft Report (1982). A recent Ofsted report ‘confirmed the narrow nature of much of the teaching’ (Ofsted 2008, 5), while an earlier report had, as one of its main conclusions, that the ‘quality of teaching was the key factor influencing students’ achievement’ (Ofsted 2006, 1). The Training and Development Agency (TDA), which regulates pre-service courses, their numbers and training quality, initiated Mathematics Enhancement Courses (MECs) in 2004, to help address these issues. A MEC is a 26 week mathematics subject knowledge for teaching course undertaken by graduates who do not possess a mathematics degree, but who wish to teach mathematics at secondary level (aged 11 and over). A MEC is a step on the road to mathematics subject knowledge, understanding and performance, which is completed before commencing ITE. Enhancement Courses and the ITE pre-learning which take place in them, as part of becoming a teacher, are an under-researched area. Yet Enhancement Courses are very important in today’s ITE landscape in England, as well as in other countries, including the USA and South Africa. My earlier research (2009a) has provided evidence that participation in a pre-Initial Teacher Education (ITE) Mathematics Enhancement Course (MEC) changes the ‘beliefs’ of pre-ITE students concerning the way in which they think mathematics should be taught. The research question to be answered by my paper is: If participation in a pre-Initial Teacher Education (ITE) Mathematics Enhancement Course (MEC) changes the ‘beliefs’ of pre-ITE students concerning the way in which they think mathematics should be taught: How robust are these changes? The influences of Shulman (1986) and Swann (2005; 2006) will be used to develop the conceptual framework for the research. This conceptual framework will be used to develop insights into the relationship for a trainee mathematics teacher between prior experience of pedagogy as a learner, current experience of pre-ITE pedagogy, in a transition phase from learner to teacher, and future beliefs concerning their pedagogy as a teacher.

Following a pilot study (Clarke, 2009b), the paper will draw on a mixed research design consisting of a mixed methods study of the 2008 cohort of MEC students now entering teaching. The quantitative aspect will include a questionnaire, the ‘belief statements’ used to form the questions will be based upon statements previously used by Swann (2005; 2006) and the Standards Unit (2005). The qualitative data will be collected through guided/semi-structured interviews with a representative sample of students aiming to explore if, how and why their beliefs changed during the MEC and how robust were those changes. Findings from both parts of the study will be analysed using both descriptive statistics and grounded theory to identify insights into the relationships for trainee mathematics teachers between personal learning, constructions of mathematics as a subject and developing pedagogical knowledge.

Data analysis is still in the early stages, however initial evidence from the pilot study (Clarke, 2009b) indicates that there are complex relationships between how students understand mathematics as a subject, their own experiences of learning the subject at school and in Higher Education, their constructions of what kind of mathematics teacher they wish to be and their experiences of learning on the MEC. In addition the pilot study appeared to show some evidence that participation in a MEC does change "beliefs" concerning the way in which participants think mathematics should be taught. Once changed, these changed "beliefs" appear to be robust.