Mathematics Teachers’ Knowledge and Productive Disposition for Teaching: A Framework and Measure

Abstract

Mathematics teacher education aims both to increase knowledge (cognitive constructs) and to instill productive disposition (affect-related constructs) for teaching mathematics. Prospective teachers’ knowledge and productive disposition are theoretically intertwined and together make up Mathematical Proficiency for Teaching (MPT). Although both aspects of MPT represent simultaneous goals in university classes, most research has focused on one kind of outcome or the other, and those studies that address both often use separate, disconnected measures. In this chapter we discuss the MPT framework and describe a novel MPT survey that simultaneously measures pedagogical content knowledge (i.e., knowledge) and teaching self-efficacy and motivation beliefs (i.e., productive disposition) for teaching the topic of multidigit addition and subtraction. We describe our use of the survey measure to investigate how one methods (pedagogy) class contributed to elementary teachers’ MPT for this topic. Our results from a cross-sectional study and a longitudinal follow-up show the survey measure is psychometrically well-behaved, measures substantially different constructs in spite of a narrow content focus, and characterizes strengths and limitations of the specific methods class in question. Implications for research and theory are discussed.