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The relationship among elementary teachers’ content knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and practices

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Abstract

This study investigated 481 in-service elementary teachers’ level of mathematical content knowledge, attitudes toward mathematics, beliefs about the effectiveness of inquiry-based instruction, use of inquiry-based instruction and modeled the relationship among these variables. Upper elementary teachers (grades 3–5) were found to have greater content knowledge and more positive attitudes toward mathematics than primary teachers (grades K-2). There was no difference in teachers’ beliefs about effective instruction, but primary level teachers were found to use inquiry-based instruction more frequently than upper elementary teachers. Consistent with Ernest’s [Ernest (1989). The knowledge, beliefs and attitudes of the mathematics teacher: A model. Journal of Education for Teaching, 15(1), 13–33] model of mathematics teaching, content knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs were all found to be related to teachers’ instructional practice. Furthermore, beliefs were found to partially mediate the effects of content knowledge and attitudes on instructional practice. Content knowledge was found to be negatively related to beliefs in the effectiveness of inquiry-based instruction and teachers’ use of inquiry-based instruction in their classrooms. However, overall, teachers with more positive attitudes toward mathematics were more likely to believe in the effectiveness of inquiry-based instruction and use it more frequently in their classroom. Teacher beliefs were found to have the strongest effect on teachers’ practice. Implications for the goals and objectives of elementary mathematics methods courses and professional development are discussed.

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Notes

  1. For 9 teachers, based on the consistency of their ratings, it was apparent that they were using a 5-point rating scale instead of a 4-point rating scale for these 10 items. Therefore, in order to maintain the 4-point range, their ratings for the 10 items were transformed as follows, 5 to 4, 4 to 3, 3 to 2.5, 2 to 2, 1 to 1.

  2. The correlation between the residuals of teachers’ attitudes and content knowledge can essentially be interpreted in the same way as the correlation between the variables. However, it is important to note that technically this value represents the correlation between that part of the two variables that is not accounted for by the background characteristics.

  3. Initial comparisons of parameter estimates across groups were based on an inspection of the critical ratios of differences among the pairs of parameters. If the critical ratio of difference is greater than 1.96 it suggests that the regression weights for the two compared groups are different. Only one difference among the 54 comparisons was found to be greater than 1.96 (2.06). This was the relationship between ‘highest degree’ and ‘content knowledge’ for District A K-2 and District B K-2 teachers. However, finding at least one significant critical difference would be likely just by chance alone.

  4. See footnote 3.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Gwen Lloyd for reading previous versions of this article and making helpful suggestions for its improvement. The research reported in this study was supported in part by National Science Foundation Grant #9911558. Any conclusions stated here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the National Science Foundation.

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  1. Department of Teaching and Learning, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 300-C War Memorial Hall, Blacksburg, VA, 24061, USA

    Jesse L. M. Wilkins

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Correspondence to Jesse L. M. Wilkins.

Appendices

Appendix A

Table A1 Items measuring beliefs in effectiveness of inquiry-based instructional practices (instructional beliefs)
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Table A2 Items measuring frequency of usage of inquiry-based instructional practices (instructional practice)
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Appendix B

Table B1 Intercorrelations between variables for K-2 and 3–5 teachers by district
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Wilkins, J.L.M. The relationship among elementary teachers’ content knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and practices. J Math Teacher Educ 11, 139–164 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10857-007-9068-2

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