Teachers' Beliefs and Practices in Teaching Mathematics for Conceptual Understanding: The Role of Constraints

• In Event: The Challenges of Doing Math in Multiple Spaces

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to introduce and analyze a new approach for examining the relationship between teachers’ beliefs and practices in the current Common Core era that focuses on the development of students’ conceptual understanding. While exploring the relationship between teachers’ beliefs and practices, their self-reported constraints that account for mismatches between these beliefs and practices are also examined. Our data come from 429 grades 4-8 mathematics teachers in Tennessee. Data were analyzed through a series of two-level multivariate measurement models. Through our analyses, we identified logical patterns of associations between teachers’ perceptions of constraints and both the mismatch between their beliefs and practices of teaching for conceptual understanding and the frequency of these practices.

Authors

• Bilge Yurekli, University of Pittsburgh

• Zahid Kisa, Florida State University

• Richard James Correnti, University of Pittsburgh

• Mary Kay Stein, University of Pittsburgh