Measuring Teachers' Beliefs in Relation to the Standards for Mathematical Practice
Abstract
"The research described here was conducted in the context of a comprehensive and intensive five-year Mathematics and Science Project funded by the National Science Foundation. Participants were teachers of grades 4-8, and the focus of the project was on enhancing teachers' mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT) and pedagogy in order to increase student success in algebra and future mathematics courses. Participants engaged in challenging mathematics and pedagogy learning in 2-week summer institutes, monthly seminars, long-term lesson study, and self-facilitated collaboration in each of the five years. We were curious to learn to what extent teachers' knowledge, dispositions, and practice changed as a result of participation in this work; areas of investigation included mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT) (Ball, Thames, & Phelps, 2008; Hill, Schilling, & Ball, 2004), self-efficacy (SE) and outcome-expectancy (OE) beliefs (Bandura, 1977), proclivities for teaching mathematics (PTM) (Lewis, J., Fischman, D., & Riggs, M., 2014), and classroom instruction as measured by the Mathematical Quality of Instruction (MQI) rubric (Learning Mathematics for Teaching Project, 2011), along with correlations among these."