The role of subject-matter content in teacher preparation: an international perspective for mathematics

Abstract

International comparative studies in education provide a fresh perspective on K-12 education policy by enabling countries to learn from each other’s approaches. The recently conducted Teacher Education and Development Study—Mathematics provides a worldwide lens by which to examine the role of subject-matter in the preparation of US teachers of mathematics for primary and lower secondary students. More specifically, a previous study looking at the international top-performing teacher preparation programmes identified a common set of learning experiences (topics/content) related to mathematics. This empirically derived international benchmark is used in this paper to examine the quality of the mathematics preparation of future US teachers in various university and college programmes.

Keywords:

• Teacher education (mathematics)
• teacher education curriculum
• international education (teacher)
• educational policy

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the GE Foundation.

Notes

1. Oman did not study their primary teacher preparation programmes and Spain did not study their lower secondary programmes. Consequently, although 16 countries participated, only 15 countries are represented in either the primary or lower secondary programme analyses. In TEDS-M, a programme is a formally defined unit within each teacher preparation institution sampled according to the TEDS-M sampling frame.

2. In this section, ‘programme’ refers to an aggregate of all teacher preparation units with the same level (primary, lower secondary or mixed) at the same institution. This simplification was necessary in order to make valid international comparisons, given the great diversity in organizing teacher preparation across the 16 countries.

3. The use of the work ‘Course’ requires an inference for some countries given the variation in instructional organizations to make international comparisons feasible. The scope of the mathematics content topics listed in the questionnaire would typically define courses in most countries. See Schmidt, Cogan, et al. (2011) and Schmidt and Cogan (2014) for more details.

4. SAT and ACT scores were equated based on a concordance study by Dorans (1999).

5. We found similar results using multilevel analysis: accounting for college entrance exam scores reduces the benchmark OTL coefficient, but its association with MCK remains statistically significant.

6. Category 1: whole number, fraction & decimals, percentages; Category 2: negative, rational, and real #s, proportionality/ratios, Category 3: geometry; Category 4: slope, functions, linear & non-linear equations.

7. The covariance matrix for this analysis is found in the Appendix 1.

8. The absence of the relationship between SAT/ACT and course-taking provides further evidence that the relationship of OTL to test performance is not due to selection effects.

9. Model fit passed threshold tests such as: chi-square, NFI, GFI and CI (χ² = 0.2; p < 0.64). Also the same model was fitted to the lower secondary teachers prepared in a primary or lower secondary programme and who took the primary version of the MCK test (n = 319). The results indicated the same pattern of relationships although the direct relationship of benchmark OTL to instructional preparedness was not as strong and there was a direct relationship of SAT to benchmark OTL. The fit of model was not adequate (p < 0.003).

10. In the light of the findings of the following subsection, it might be possible that teachers in high-poverty schools might feel less prepared to teach mathematics due to environmental effects. Supplementary path analyses including school poverty as an exogenous variable failed to find a statistically significant relationship between school poverty and preparedness and had no appreciable impact on the other relationships in the model.