RUME 14 (Volume 4)
2011
Portland, Oregon
EXAMINING PERSONAL TEACHER EFFICACY BELIEFS AND SPECIALIZED CONTENT KNOWLEDGE OF PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS IN MATHEMATICAL CONTEXTS
Page: 11
This study addressed the following research question: To what extent are K-8 pre- service teachers' personal mathematics teacher efficacy beliefs aligned with their content knowledge for teaching mathematics? 18 K-8 pre-service teachers enrolled in a teacher preparation mathematics content course completed semi-structured interviews and follow-up written assessments in which efficacy beliefs and content knowledge regarding specific mathematical teaching scenarios were assessed. Preliminary analyses indicate that the efficacy beliefs of pre-service teachers with low content knowledge vary according to the nature of the teaching scenario. Consequently, the extent to which teacher efficacy beliefs and knowledge are aligned for these pre-service teachers depends on the mathematics involved. Keywords pre-service teachers, teacher efficacy beliefs, mathematical content knowledge Teacher efficacy beliefs are considered an important topic of study, in part because of the apparent positive correlations between teacher efficacy beliefs and a variety of desirable outcomes including student achievement (Ghaith & Yaghi, 1997; Riggs & Enochs, 1990; Ross, 1992). While there is an increasing body of literature on teacher efficacy beliefs, few researchers have examined the potential links between pre-service teachers' mathematics teacher efficacy beliefs and mathematical content knowledge. In fact, investigating the extent to which pre- service teachers' teacher efficacy beliefs are aligned with their mathematical content knowledge att