Elementary school teachers\u27 beliefs about teaching and learning mathematics: Selected case studies in Taiwan

Mathematics curriculum innovation has been launched in Taiwan recently in order to reflect the changing needs of the 21st century. The underlying assumptions of reform are: a learner-centered approach, emphasis on confluent education, and a problem-solving & reasoning approach. Research has revealed that teachers\u27 beliefs can negatively interact with curriculum reform. On the other hand, some studies document that beliefs have little effect on instructional behavior. Therefore, this study attempts to investigate three questions: (1) what are the teachers\u27 beliefs about the teaching and learning of mathematics in Taiwanese elementary schools and in what ways are teachers\u27 beliefs congruent with the ongoing trend of reform; (2) what is the general picture of teachers\u27 mathematical instructional practices in Taiwanese elementary schools and in what ways are these instructional practices congruent with the ongoing trend of reform; and (3) what is the relationship between teachers\u27 beliefs and their instructional practices? Basically, this study combines qualitative and quantitative methods in collecting and analyzing data. That is, teacher interviews and questionnaires were administered in order to understand teachers\u27 beliefs about teaching and learning mathematics while observational checklists and naturalistic field observations were used to portray instructional behavior. The major findings of this study are: (1) Elementary school teachers\u27 beliefs tend to hold with the traditional absorption learning theory and seem incongruent with the undergoing curriculum reform. (2) The instructional practices tend to reflect a traditional teacher-centered classroom and also seem incongruent with the launched reform. (3) Teachers\u27 beliefs about teaching and learning play a vital role in shaping their instructional behavior; the situational constraints merely play a minor role. In light of the above findings, some implications such as teacher education were drawn to broaden teachers\u27 beliefs