Page 183 - Children’s mathematical development and learning needs in perspective of teachers’ use of dynamic math interviews

specialized content knowledge for various domains of mathematics. Additional information provided by a more detailed (i.e., item-by- item) examination of the teachers’ questionnaire responses showed more than 90% of the participating (Dutch) teachers to have high (i.e., “large to very large”) beliefs about their own mathematical knowledge and the teaching of the various domains of mathematics — both before and after the intervention (i.e., participation in the dynamic math interview teacher professional development program and practice). However, when it comes to items such as offering concrete examples in the domain of ratios, fractions, percentages, and decimals or adopting different types of activities within the domain of geometry, the responses showed more than 20% of the teachers to have lower beliefs (i.e., “to some extent”). This finding suggests that teachers do not find the teaching of the more complex aspects of mathematics to be easy. The findings reported in Chapter 4 showed the teachers’ self- perceptions of their mathematical knowledge for teaching to have increased, following participation in the professional development program. With the explanation and practice garnered with regard to the various aspects of dynamic math interviewing (e.g., asking questions to assess children’s understanding and needs for clarification, appropriate interpretation of children’s underlying thinking and reasoning) but also their interactions with other teachers during the professional development program, they may have strengthened their mathematical knowledge.
Teacher self-efficacy within the context of teaching mathematics showed no associations with children’s arithmetic fluency and negatively correlated with children’s mathematical problem-solving (Chapter 2). These differential findings were not completely in accordance with what was expected and clearly contradict prior research showing positive associations between teacher self-efficacy and children’s mathematics achievement in general (Ashton & Web, 1986; Tella, 2008). In a review study, Klassen et al. (2011) further showed the associations between teacher self-efficacy and children’s mathematics achievement to not be as strong as commonly assumed. Nevertheless, in a study by Bruce et al. (2010), increases in teacher math self-efficacy correlated positively with increases in student
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Summary and general discussion
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