Attitudes to mathematics of beginning undergraduates and prospective teachers: Some implications for education

An acute shortage of mathematics teachers has emerged in the Western world. This article describes a study of the influence of tertiary education experiences on the attitudes of potential mathematics teachers towards their subject. Parallel questionnaires were given to groups of students who were respectively entering university mathematics courses as new undergraduates, and entering postgraduate teacher training courses. Both groups of students answered items pertaining to their experiences within secondary mathematics courses. The undergraduate students were also asked a series of questions about their expectations of tertiary mathematics courses. For the postgraduates a parallel set of questions was provided that required them to rate their actual tertiary experiences. An analysis of responses indicated that the postgraduate students were more positive about their recollection of secondary mathematics than were the undergraduate students with their more recent experience of it. They were also less positive about the reality of their tertiary courses than were the undergraduates about their expectations. Responses of the postgraduates suggested that tertiary mathematics is not merely an extension of secondary mathematics, but a subject with which distinctive and, in general, more negative reactions are associated. Mathematics emerges as a subject which progressively loses its appeal with further study and implications are drawn for both tertiary education and teacher supply