Knowledge and attitudes of future schoolteachers in the scientific‐mathematical sphere: some evidences for Italy

Abstract

Analysis of the university careers of students who are training to become primary school teachers has shown that a certain number have real difficulty in passing examinations in the scientific and methodological fields. This paper uses both objective and subjective data to analyse the levels of competence in this cultural field, and the propensity towards certain disciplines. Competence in scientific subjects among these students varies considerably, but the greatest concern is a widespread negative attitude towards the quantitative sciences. To transform this approach the way in which these are taught to future teachers requires considerably improvement, by means of projects and programs which take into consideration awareness of this background, that is the attitude of “fighting shy”, from both cognitive and affective viewpoints.

Keywords:

• teacher training
• scientific and mathematical knowledge
• self‐efficacy
• motivational orientation
• multidimensional scaling
• perceptive map

Notes

1. Italian Ministerial Decree, April 30/2004: “Corsi di laurea a numero programmato a livello nazionale – modalita e contenuti delle prove di ammissione”, Attachment C: “Programmi relativi alla prova di ammissione al corso di laurea in scienze della formazione primaria”.

2. The mean high school diploma grade for first‐year students in academic year 2004–05 at the University of Padova was 80/100.

3. This is a modified version of the Perceived scholastic self‐efficacy scale, limited to evaluation of performance in various study subjects (Caprara 2001).

4. Method used for extraction: principal components analysis; method used for rotation: Varimax with Kaiser’s normalisation.

5. The first scale, “Humanistic sphere” summarises scores on literature, psychology, pedagogy, history, geography and philosophy; and the second, “Scientific/mathematical sphere”, those attributed to mathematics, physics, statistics and biology. For both scales, Cronbach’s alpha was 0.7, indicating good consistency and thus the summability of the original items.

6. Difference revealed by Bonferroni’s post‐hoc test.