The Affordances of a Systems Approach to Conceptualizing Elementary Teacher Preparation

• In Event: Building a Knowledge Base for Elementary Teacher Education

Abstract

Objective. Historically, there have been competing conceptualizations of teacher preparation. Some paradigms isolate the effect of certain “inputs” such as program characteristics or teacher candidate characteristics on particular “outputs” of interest (e.g., student achievement data). Other conceptualizations frame the characteristics and experiences of teacher candidates within and outside of their teacher preparation programs as part of interrelated and highly contextualized systems. This paper uses both frameworks – “input/output” and a “systems” approach – to analyze the relationship between teacher candidate (TC) experiences, beliefs, and perceptions during teacher preparation, and their level of mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT).
Theoretical Framework. Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT; Sannino, Daniels, & Gutierrez, 2009) views learning as a collective activity that occurs through social interaction in particular settings and is mediated both by individual and institutional histories and by conceptual and material tools (Engeström, 1999; Wenger, 1998). CHAT calls attention to the interactions between beginning teachers’ characteristics and the social practices and tools available in teacher preparation. This study examines how four key aspects of novices’ characteristics (i.e., their experiences, beliefs, perceptions, and knowledge) interact and form a system of learning over the course of their teacher preparation program.
Data Sources and Methods. Data come from teacher candidate responses (N=348) to two surveys. One includes TCs’ background characteristics, beliefs about teaching, and opportunities to learn in their preparation program. The second was a survey of MKT (Hill, Rowan, & Ball, 2005). TCs attended four large teacher preparation programs across three states.
We created latent constructs for TC experiences, perceptions, beliefs, and MKT and estimated a multiple-step, multiple-mediator model to test whether associations between these constructs were better described by specific directional relationships between particular TC characteristics and knowledge (“inputs” and “outputs”) or by a broader interrelated network of experiences, perceptions, beliefs, and knowledge (Hayes, Preacher, & Meyers, 2011).
Findings. According to tests of each “input” and “output”, only TC experiences (TCE) had a significant association with MKT scores (p = 0.035). This association was negative. However, using the systems approach, where the effect of TCE was mediated by both the TC’s perception of the quality of their preparation and their beliefs about mathematics and mathematics instruction, this same association was positive and significant (p = .047).
Significance. The input-output framework produced results that while significant, were oversimplified and misleading. When these same relationships were framed as part of a broader, connected system that included perceptions, experiences, and beliefs, the associations between them reversed direction and increased in magnitude. These data emphasize the importance of using a “systems” lens, such as CHAT, to conceptualize teacher preparation when collecting and analyzing data so that myriad relationships between characteristics of TCs and their respective programs are not obscured.

Authors

• Rebekah Berlin, University of Virginia

• Julie Jackson Cohen, University of Virginia