Journal article
Undergraduates’ conceptions of mathematics teaching and learning: an empirical study
- Abstract:
- Previous research in mathematics education has explored teachers’ conceptions of mathematics and its teaching and learning, and how their instructional tendencies (e.g., “traditional”, “technological”, “spontaneous” and “investigative”) relate to these conceptions. However, empirical evidence on this topic from large samples of pre-service teachers is limited. This study adapts and validates an instrument originally designed for in-service teachers to analyse the conceptions of mathematics and mathematics teaching and learning. This was done in a sample of undergraduate students in several different degree programmes (primary education, mathematics, and the education itinerary in psychology) in a Spanish university. Existing theory about instructional tendencies and conceptions of mathematics teaching and learning that was developed in the context of in-service teachers is then re-examined in the context of empirical evidence from this sample of individuals (all potential future teachers) without teaching experience. Results show that items from the instrument can be separated into four factors focussed on investigative stances, the role of textbooks, the role of teachers and lesson planning. Individual participants are not characterised by single tendencies; rather, they can be described in terms of several combinations of tendencies, grouped into four clusters. In line with the previous literature on in-service teachers, results suggest that conceptions of mathematics and its teaching and learning are not best captured by rigid, sharply delineated profiles. Rather, individuals configure their own conceptions in terms of combinations of different characteristics of prototypical tendencies.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 740.7KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1007/s10649-021-10105-5
Authors
- Publisher:
- Springer
- Journal:
- Educational Studies in Mathematics More from this journal
- Volume:
- 109
- Issue:
- 3
- Pages:
- 523-547
- Publication date:
- 2021-09-21
- Acceptance date:
- 2021-08-25
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1573-0816
- ISSN:
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0013-1954
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1197288
- Local pid:
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pubs:1197288
- Deposit date:
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2025-05-29
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Rodríguez-Muñiz et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2021
- Rights statement:
- Copyright © 2021, The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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