The Impact of Secondary Mathematics Methods Courses on Preservice Secondary Teachers’ Beliefs about the Learning and Teaching of Mathematics

The Comprehensive Framework for Teacher Knowledge provides a model that describes an approach to the secondary mathematics methods course, as described by Robert Ronau and P. Mark Taylor. The model includes the orientation of preservice teachers toward mathematics and the teaching of mathematics, which includes the beliefs of the preservice teachers. The first questions deal with identifying the methods used in the methods course to address beliefs. The second set of questions deal with the effects of the methods course on the beliefs that preservice teachers hold on the learning and teaching of mathematics.

The study included 16 different universities in the United States. The students completed the Mathematics Beliefs Inventory (MBI) before and after the course. The data used for analyses included the MBI, course syllabi and interviews with instructors and course textbooks. Qualitative analysis was conducted on the syllabi and interviews to assist in creating a rubric to score the syllabi, interviews and textbooks. Correlation and linear regression analysis was used along with the Wilcoxon signed-ranks test for the statistical analysis.

A significant positive relationship was found between the number of methods used in the methods course to challenge student beliefs and the improvement between pre and post tests. Preservice teachers’ beliefs about the learning and teaching of mathematics were found to become more reform-oriented during the course of the methods course.