The Professional Development Needs of Mathematics Teachers in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

This study aimed at determining the professional development needs of mathematics teachers in Saudi Arabia. The sample of the study contained 643 teachers and 39 supervisors of four districts of education across Saudi Arabia. The survey addressed two domains of professional development: content knowledge in mathematics, and pedagogical content knowledge. The study found that, in the domain of content knowledge for professional development, the most frequently occurring topics were as follows: Topological concepts and their applications, spherical geometry and its applications; mathematical problems solving; mathematical logic, reasoning, and proof; and, limits and continuity and their applications. In the domain of pedagogical content knowledge, participants defined areas of deficit across thirteen topics. Included in these were: Mathematical teaching for students with special needs; mathematical teaching for gifted students; lab use in teaching mathematics, etc. Two-way ANOVA indicated that there were significant differences in means of mathematics teachers’ needs for professional development in favor of supervisors vs. mathematics teachers in the pedagogical content knowledge domain alone. While there were no significant differences in the means of the need for professional development for mathematics teachers related to their teaching grade level or to the interaction between job and grade level in both domains.