The Strength of Relationships Between Reported Practices and Observed Practices for Elementary Mathematics Specialists and Their Peers (Poster 9)

• In Event: The Work of Elementary Mathematics Specialists: Findings From the STEAM Project

Abstract

Purpose. The purpose of our study was to understand how EMSs differed from their peers in terms of the relationships between their reported practices and beliefs and their observed teaching practices. This poster differs from Poster #2 in that it focuses on relationships between responses to specific survey items and specific observed teaching practices rather than general patterns between factors.

Theoretical Framework. While some studies show clear relationships between teachers’ beliefs and their practices (e.g., Stipek et al., 2001; Thompson et al., 1994), other studies have raised questions about these relationships (Raymond, 1997; Thompson, 1984; Webel & Platt, 2015). Given our larger project’s goal of understanding differences between EMSs and their peers, we wanted to understand whether the strength of relationships between what teachers reported about their teaching and what was observed would be different between these two groups.

Methods. This paper draws on data from the BLINDED project and includes data collected from 28 EMSs and 33 of their peers teaching at the same schools and grade levels. First, we administered two Likert-scale beliefs surveys (e.g. Banilower et. al., 2013; White et. al., 2005/2006). The Banilower et. al. (2013) survey also asked teachers to report the frequency of engaging in various teaching practices. Second, we collected observation data using a modified version of the Classroom Learning Environment protocol (Tarr et al., 2013).

Results. We found correlations between reported practices/beliefs and associated observed practices were generally stronger for EMS teachers than their peers. For example, there was a positive correlation of 0.27 between the observation scores for the criterion “Multiple (alternative) solution strategies were discussed” and the survey item, “How often do you...have students compare and contrast different methods for solving a problem? However, this correlation was much stronger for EMSs (r = 0.51) than for nonEMS teachers (r = 0.05). A similar pattern was exhibited across several observation and survey items, suggesting that survey responses were more reflective of teaching practices for EMSs than their peers.

Significance. This study builds on previous work related to EMS teachers beliefs (e.g. Swars et. al., 2016) by showing not only that EMS’ beliefs and practices differed from their peers, but the strength of the relationship between reported beliefs and practices and observed practices were also different between EMSs and their peers. One implication of this study is, while caution should always be exercised when drawing conclusions about teachers’ practice based on self-reported data, teachers with advanced training in mathematics may more accurately report their practices than teachers without this training.

Author

• Maria Elizabeth Nielsen Stewart, University of Missouri