How education affects mathematics teachers' knowledge: Unpacking selected aspects of teacher knowledge

Abstract

It is no surprise that all mathematics teacher education programs attempt to increase future teachers' knowledge, since teachers' knowledge has an effect not only on their teaching but also on their students' achievements. However, measuring the relationship between teachers' knowledge and their education is overly demanding. In this study we unpacked a selection of aspects of Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT) and created a 72-item survey that would measure teacher educators' and graduated teachers' perceptions of what graduated teachers have learned well or less well during teacher education. The data were collected under the auspices of the University of Eastern Finland. The results show that the teacher educators (N=18) and graduated teachers (N=101) who participated have developed rather similar perceptions of what graduated mathematics teachers learn well or poorly during their teacher education. According to the results, Subject matter knowledge and Pedagogical content knowledge receive similar emphases in the teacher education program, but certain fields of teacher knowledge, such as Common content knowledge, receive a greater emphasis than others. The approach described here provides a simple way of investigating this demanding phenomenon, and hence the limitations and the possibilities of the study will be discussed in detail.