Changes in pre-service teachers' beliefs about mathematics teaching and learning during teacher preparation and effects of video-enhanced analysis of practice

Abstract

While the construct belief is defined in various ways in teacher education research, most scholars agree that beliefs guide teachers' decision making and classroom behaviors and thus are an important aspect of teacher competence. Pre-service teachers (PSTs) have been typically found to hold a transmission view of mathematics teaching. The influence of teacher preparation on future teachers' beliefs about mathematics teaching and learning is unclear. This study investigates beliefs in a sample of U.S. elementary PSTs prior to teacher preparation and examines the impact on belief changes of two different mathematics methods courses. Findings reveal that while PSTs hold a transmission view of mathematics teaching prior to teacher preparation, their beliefs change during the program. In addition, PSTs who attended a video-enhanced mathematics methods course structured around systematic and collaborative analysis of practice showed stronger evidence of alignment with the beliefs that children can solve problems in novel ways before being taught how to solve such problems and that teachers should allow children to do as much of the thinking as possible during instruction, than a group of PSTs who attended a more typical version of the course. Implications for teacher preparation and future research are discussed.