Capturing Pedagogic Change in Novice Primary Teachers of Mathematics: Development of the measuring instrument DART

Abstract

In this thesis, I investigate factors contributing to the complex concept of quality teaching. The subjects for the study were pre-service primary school teachers in initial teacher education courses who had varying degrees of maths anxiety. The “big question” was how these people would teach when they were alone in classrooms. Would they show versatility, see the teachable moment, or analyse the difficulty their students were having? There are many factors essential to quality teaching, such as knowing the subject matter, and there is much research about what teachers should know to teach mathematics effectively. Using a mixed methodology, data were gathered from the participants before they began teaching, as they started in the classroom, and again two years later. Through my research and trialling different instruments, I was unable to find one that captured effectively and accurately what was seen on the videos of these novice teachers teaching mathematics in the Numeracy Development Projects (NDP) style. As a result I developed a suitable data capture tool to encode NDP-style sessions, which I have called the DART (Dynamic Analysis Reflection Tool) framework. Data included demographic information of the participants, their maths anxiety levels, mathematics for teaching ability measures, and more. Evidence of the quality teaching of the seven participants is presented in two full case studies with five vignettes for contrast and verification. The results confirm that quality teaching is complex. The DART framework has allowed the identification of increases and diminution of some of the factors involved in quality teaching. These factors are dynamic, changing as teachers’ experience intensifies, their confidence grows, and their ability to identify the teachable moment expands. Evidence was captured of novice teachers overcoming their negative feelings about mathematics and their negative projections about the difference they could make; they exhibited improved confidence and security about their teaching of mathematics, and they showed determination to do the best for their students. Quality teaching is something teachers assert that they know when they see it; using the DART instrument provides evidence that they can be sure what they are seeing is quality teaching.