Recent changes in the landscape for primary initial teacher education (ITE) in Ireland prompted the first stage of this longitudinal design based research study on Mathematics Education which sought to establish a model of teaching and learning based upon iterations of research upon practice (Borko, Liston & Whitcomb, 2007).
The challenge was to design a research led undergraduate mathematics programme of study that would focus on the development of students’ efficacy, and more particularly in Year 1, on students’ knowledge of and approaches to the teaching of Measures and perceived implementation of same on School Placement.
The entire cohort of 430 first year ITE students were invited to participate in an online questionnaire based upon Enochs, Smith and Huinker’s (2000) mathematics teacher efficacy beliefs instrument with a small number of more open questions pertaining to the particular content of the first year programme. A stratified sample of sixteen students, selected on the basis of their attainment on the Mathematics Education assignment, were invited to attend a semi-structured interview conducted using an adapted interview protocol by Savage (2005). The sixteen students’ mathematics lesson plans concerning the teaching of Measures and reflections on same were collated.
This paper presents an analysis of the online questionnaire, interview transcripts, lesson plans and reflections. It further investigates whether the content of the first year Mathematics Education programme influenced students’ perceptions of self-efficacy and/or classroom practice in teaching mathematics.
Keywords: Designed-based mathematics education, Mathematics student teacher efficacy