The Future of Education
Investigating Secondary Mathematics Teachers’ Confidence Levels After Attending Voluntary Professional Learning
Gregory Hine, School of Education University of Notre Dame Australia (Fremantle Campus) (Australia)
Abstract
Keywords: professional learning, secondary mathematics teachers
The supply of secondary school mathematics teachers (SSMTs) in Australian schools is a problematic issue (O’Connor & Thomas, 2019). One effort conducted at scale involves providing professional learning (PL) for teachers of Years 7-10 mathematics, so that they are competent and qualified to teach mathematics courses to Year 11 and 12 students. PL is viewed as the processes by which teachers acquire new knowledge, skills, affects, and/or develop behaviours (Beswick et al., 2016), which ultimately lead to improved student outcomes (Wilkie, 2019). Presented at the conference are the findings of a survey where 73 SSMTs completed immediately before and again, immediately after, they participated in an intensive PL course. The survey interrogated the extent to which SSMTs felt confident to teach mathematical content following their PL course participation. For one survey question with six items, mean confidence score was calculated and pre-post PL change in confidence levels assessed across mathematics course and year level using a linear mixed model (West et al., 2007)l. Results indicated SSMTs’ confidence levels improved after completion of all PL courses, with teachers in the Year 11 courses having higher confidence levels than those attending the Year 12 courses. No significant difference was detected for Mathematics Methods versus Specialist Mathematics courses.
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O’Connor, M., & Thomas, J. (2019). Australian secondary mathematics teacher shortfalls: A deepening crisis. https://amsi.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/amsi-occasional-paper-2.pdf
West, B.T., Welch, K.B., & Galecki, A.T. (2007). Linear mixed models: A practical guide using statistical software. Taylor & Francis.
Wilkie, K.J. (2019). The challenge of changing teaching: Investigating the interplay of external and internal influences during professional learning with secondary mathematics teachers. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 22, 95–124. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10857-017-9376-0
