Open AccessTeachers’ professional development needs in data handling and probability
Author(s) -
Helena Wessels,
Hercules Nieuwoudt
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
pythagoras
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.374
H-Index - 7
eISSN - 2223-7895
pISSN - 1012-2346
DOI - 10.4102/pythagoras.v32i1.10
Subject(s) - statistics education , mathematics education , professional development , profiling (computer programming) , school teachers , teacher education , statistical thinking , newspaper , psychology , pedagogy , sociology , computer science , media studies , operating system
10.4102/pythagoras.v32i1.10Poor Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS) results and widespread
disappointing mathematics results in South Africa necessitate research-based and more
efficient professional development for in-service mathematics teachers. This article reports on
the profiling of mathematics teachers’ statistical knowledge, beliefs and confidence in order
to inform the development of in-service teacher education programmes in statistics for Grade
8 and Grade 9 teachers. Ninety mathematics teachers from schools with culturally diverse
learner populations in an urban region in South Africa were profiled using an adapted profiling
instrument (Watson, 2001). Although statistics formed part of quite a number of these teachers’
initial teacher education and about half of them were involved in professional development in
statistics education, they still teach traditionally, rather than using a more data driven approach.
Teachers indicated high levels of confidence in teaching most statistics topics but showed low
levels of statistical thinking when they had to apply their knowledge of concepts, such as sample
and average in social contexts including newspaper articles and research reports.Publisher's versio