Beliefs of Efficacy and Elementary Teachers’ Computational Skills

Abstract

Early mathematics content that is taught in elementary school lays the foundation for students' advanced mathematics performance. Thus, researchers show it is important that pre-service elementary teachers build a strong background in numbers and operations, as well as efficacy beliefs in mathematics instruction. This study expands the literature in the investigation of pre-service teachers' efficacy beliefs and mathematical knowledge by making comparisons of pre-service elementary teachers' views of efficacy to their overall ability in computation skills. Results show that elementary pre-service teachers who demonstrated lower scores in efficacy beliefs also had significantly lower computation scores. Implications for teacher preparation are also discussed.

Developing a leveling framework of mathematical belief and mathematical knowledge for teaching of Indonesian pre-service teachers

“…Based on intervew with PSTs shown that they have different experiences on teacher education learning. This is in line with the findings of Hinton et al (2014) that PSTs' number sense skills and computational abilities were not found to be related. Participants can solve mathematical problems using procedures; however they may not know the concepts or the reasons behind the procedures.…”

“…Furthermore, Wina explains that she takes teacher education program because of not her own desire. Study by Hinton et al (2014) stated that PSTs with lower scores in beliefs also had significantly lower computation scores.…”

“…The research focuses on identifying mathematical belief and MKT of PSTs and describing the levels. The PSTs provide solutions showing their knowledge of mathematical content, where procedural counting ability is separated from the ability to memorize and to define (Hinton et al, 2014). Level 0 and level 1 show that PSTs do not master pedagogic knowledge because they have instrumentalist belief with an inclination to prioritize more the ability to memorize formulas than concept understanding.…”

“…Hence, eventually the transformations to be made can be identified (Philipp, 2007). Considering the weakness of pre-service teachers and teachers in the contents of Arithmetic and Geometry, namely weak content knowledge (Hinton et al, 2014) and weak pedagogical knowledge, according to Thompson (as cited in Philipp, 2007), it is important then that research considers the interrelatedness of belief and knowledge simultaneously. *Corresponding author.…”

Number Sense Levels of In-Service Primary School Teachers in Chikankata District, Zambia

“…Research conducted in the past on number sense of pre-service teachers has shown that teachers do not possess adequate knowledge in the domain of numbers (Doriney, 2016;Akkaya, 2015;Yaman, 2015;Courtney-Clark and Wessels, 2014;Sengul 2013;Hinton, 2011;Yang et al, 2007). The number sense of pre-service teachers was found to be low and most cases, the pre-service teachers were bound to using rule-based solution strategies.…”