Pre-service Teachers' Self-efficacy for Teaching Mathematics

Teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs start forming upon entering their teacher education programs and continue to develop throughout their first few years of teaching. They then remain relatively stable for the remainder of their teaching careers. Teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs have been shown to influence teachers’ job satisfaction, resilience, burnout rates, health, motivation, teaching behaviors, and students’ academic achievement. It is important to understand how they form and what influences their development. The purpose of this study is to better understand the complex relationships involved during the formation PSTs’ self-efficacy beliefs. The study examined the relationships between PSTs’ self-efficacy beliefs for teaching and doing math, personal belief systems about math and teaching math, math content knowledge and mathematical knowledge for teaching, and how they relate to self-efficacy for teaching mathematics. Seven instruments and demographic questionnaire were administered 184 undergraduate students at a large university in the Southwestern United States. Results of multiple regression analyses showed self-efficacy for doing math and teaching, math content knowledge and beliefs about teaching math were statistically significant predictors of self-efficacy for teaching mathematics. Surprisingly, mathematical knowledge for teaching was not a statistically significant predictor. In terms of self-efficacy beliefs, there were distinct differences between self-efficacy for teaching and self-efficacy for doing math. Combined they predicted 48% (adjusted) of the variance found in self-efficacy for teaching mathematics. The results highlight the importance for teacher education programs to explicitly address pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, personal beliefs systems about teaching math, and increase the depth of understanding of math content knowledge.Educational PsychologyDoctoralUniversity of New Mexico. Division of Individual, Family and Community EducationFlowerday, TerriJones, MartinTyson, KerstiSelig, Jame