Unveiling belief and pedagogical content knowledge of prospective secondary mathematics teachers

Abstract

Prospective teachers' beliefs have a beneficial effect on their knowledge and actions. Furthermore, teachers' pedagogical content knowledge is an essential contributor to teachers' impact on students' academic outcomes. However, examining how prospective teachers' beliefs influence their pedagogical content knowledge is still unclear. The current study investigates prospective mathematics teachers' beliefs and pedagogical content knowledge. We recruited three undergraduate students in the mathematics department consisting of one male and two female participants in this study. By assigning two interviews, a test, and observation, we examined three prospective mathematics teachers' pedagogical content knowledge and their beliefs about the nature of mathematics, mathematics learning, and mathematics teaching. Prospective mathematics teachers' test, interview, and observation results were analyzed in three stages: data condensation, presentation, and conclusion drawing and verification. The findings point out that traditional beliefs (instrumentalist and platonist views) are more dominant in prospective teachers' beliefs about the nature of mathematics. Moreover, the more sophisticated prospective teachers' beliefs about the nature of mathematics, mathematics learning, and mathematics teaching are, the higher one's content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge levels are. Implications of this study, mathematics teacher educators should assist and foster prospective teachers in developing constructivist or problem-solving beliefs.