A comparative international study of differences in beliefs between future teachers and their educators

Abstract

In this study we investigate the extent to which differences exist in beliefs about teaching and learning mathematics between future teachers and their teacher educators/professors across five countries, including Chinese Taipei, Poland, Russian Federation, Singapore, and the United States. The analyses include teacher educators and future primary and secondary teachers grouped within institutions within countries and is based on meta-analytic methods to estimate effects within institutions and synthesize them across institutions within a country. We found significant differences in a number of beliefs about teaching and learning mathematics, and for some countries, the differences between future teachers and their educators vary across institutions. In a number of important and somewhat consistent ways, variation in differences in beliefs is explained by future teachers' opportunities to learn in the areas of mathematics pedagogy, general pedagogy, and field experiences provided by their teacher preparation programs. In addition, program coherence, mathematical content knowledge, and mathematical pedagogical knowledge also moderate the magnitude of differences in beliefs between future teachers and their educators. We discuss the implications of our findings for the design of the curriculum and experiences provided by teacher education programs.