PROCEEDINGS OF THE 19TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2016
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Lacking confidence and resources despite having value: A potential explanation for learning goals and instructional tasks used in undergraduate mathematics courses for prospective secondary teachers
Page: 1004
In this paper, I report on an interview-based study of 9 mathematicians to investigate the process of choosing tasks for undergraduate mathematics courses for prospective secondary teachers. Participants were asked to prioritize complementary learning goals and tasks for an undergraduate mathematics course for prospective secondary teachers and to rate their confidence in their ability to teach with those tasks and goals. While the mathematicians largely valued task types and goals that mathematics education researchers have proposed to be beneficial for such courses, the mathematicians also largely expressed lack of confidence in their ability to teach with these task types and goals. Expectancy-value theory, in combination with these findings, is proposed as one account of why, despite consensus about broad aims of mathematical preparation for secondary teaching, these aims may be inconsistent with learning opportunities afforded by actual tasks and goals used.