An attitudinal snapshot of pre-service secondary mathematics teachers

Mark Prendergast, Máire Ní Ríordáin
University College Cork, Ireland
Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin
University College Dublin, Ireland
Patrick Johnson
University of Limerick, Ireland
Iseult O'Rourke
Loreto Secondary School Balbriggan, Ireland

A teacher's attitude towards a subject has a major influence on their learning and subsequent teaching of that subject. This has a knock-on effect on the development of their own students' attitudes. However, despite such importance there has been a dearth of research in this area, particularly in relation to the attitudes of pre-service secondary teachers of mathematics. Thus, the aim of this study is to quantify the attitudes of this cohort of teachers at the beginning of their initial teacher education (ITE) program. The participants in the study are pre-service teacher cohorts (N = 98) from four Irish universities who are enrolled in a postgraduate ITE program, known as the Professional Master of Education (PME). Six sub-scales of the overall Fennema-Sherman Mathematics Attitudes Scales (FSMAS) were used to gain a quantitative measure of participants' attitudes towards the subject as they embarked on their ITE. The FSMAS scores were strongly positive, although the results of the mathematics anxiety and teacher subscales were notably lower in comparison to the others. Further analysis was carried out to identify affecting factors, particularly in relation to these two low-ranking subscales.
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Authors: Mark Prendergast (corresponding author) is a Senior Lecturer in Education in the School of Education at University College Cork, Ireland. Email: mark.prendergast@ucc.ie Máire Ní Ríordáin is a Senior Lecturer in Education in the School of Education at University College Cork, Ireland. Email: maire.niriordain@ucc.ie Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin is an Assistant Professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at University College Dublin. Email: aoibhinn.nishuilleabhain@ucd.ie Patrick Johnson is a Lecturer in Mathematics Education in the School of Education at the University of Limerick, Ireland. Email: Patrick.Johnson@ul.ie Iseult O'Rourke is a secondary mathematics teacher at Loreto Secondary School Balbriggan, Ireland. Please cite as: Prendergast, M., Ríordáin, M. N., Shúilleabháin, A. N. & Johnson, P. (2020). An attitudinal snapshot of pre-service secondary mathematics teachers. Issues in Educational Research, 30(1), 283-301. http://www.iier.org.au/iier30/prendergast.pdf