THE IMPORTANCE AND MASTERY OF SECONDARY MATHEMATICS TEACHER COMPETENCIES AS PERCEIVED BY NEBRASKA\u27S MATHEMATICS TEACHERS (PRESERVICE, METHODS, TEACHER EDUCATION)

The purpose of this study was threefold: (1) to identify specific teacher competencies that were particularly important to Nebraska secondary mathematics teachers as derived from the literature and perceived by practicing teachers; (2) to determine the relationship between the perceived level of importance and the perceived level of mastery for each teacher competency; and (3) to determine the influence of the demographic variables of teaching experience, school size, and educational background on importance and mastery. The basic design chosen for this study was survey research using a questionnaire to collect the data. There were four basic stages utilized to complete the study: (1) development of a 41-item instrument used to collect the data, (2) administration of the instrument to a stratified random sample of 400 Nebraska secondary mathematics teachers, (3) analysis of the data collected using descriptive statistics, Spearman\u27s rank correlation, t-tests, analysis of variance, and a reliability test of the instrument, and (4) interpretation of the results of the analysis. The findings were: (1) The top five secondary mathematics teacher competencies, when ranked according to importance, were of a practical nature relating to executing instruction while the bottom five were more theoretical and were related to learning theory. (2) A strong significant positive relationship (.903) was found between the rank of perceived importance and the rank of perceived mastery. (3) Two-thirds of the items had significantly lower means for the level of mastery than for the level of importance. (4) Demographic variables had little or no effect on the ratings of perceived importance or perceived mastery. (5) The average teacher had taught for approximately 14 years, had taught mainly senior high students, had a master\u27s degree, had some professional growth experiences within the last three years, and was certified to teach secondary mathematics