The Professional Identity of Primary Mathematics Teachers and Their Intention to Implement STEM Education in Mainland China

Abstract

As mathematics is one of the key disciplines of STEM education, primary mathematics teachers can play important roles in STEM education, and it is generally acknowledged that teachers’ professional identity can affect their teaching effectiveness. With the attention paid to STEM education in Mainland China, it is of great significance to find out the primary mathematics teachers’ level of intention to implement STEM education. This research was aimed at studying the degree of professional identity of primary mathematics teachers from different cities in Guangdong, the most populous province of Mainland China, and tried to figure out their intentions about implementing STEM education, further exploring whether there is a correlation between the above two variables. The paper mainly adopted quantitative research, through online questionnaires (n = 41), finding that the professional identity of primary mathematics teachers in Guangdong, Mainland China, is at a mid to upper level and they generally have a positive intention to implement STEM education. Through correlation analysis, this study verified that the teachers’ professional identity and intention to implement STEM education are significantly positively correlated (r = 0.69, p < 0.001), and found that professional identity shows a positive impact in predicting teachers’ intention to implement STEM education (b = 0.89, p < 0.001). Meanwhile, the gender factor has a significant impact on predicting STEM intention using identity (b = 0.35, p < 0.01). Overall, with these findings, this empirical research identified the potential influencing factors for promoting STEM education in Mainland China in the future.