Martina Döhrmann

Family background, entry selectivity and opportunities to learn: What matters in primary teacher education? An international comparison of fifteen countries

First findings of IEA’s “Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics (TEDS-M)” had revealed differences in the demographic background, prior knowledge, opportunities to learn (OTL), and outcomes of primary teacher education between future teachers from different countries. In this chapter, two hypotheses are examined: (1) OTL and teacher background are significant predictors of mathematics content knowledge (MCK) and mathematics pedagogical content knowledge (MPCK) as teacher education outcomes. (2) OTL effects are partly mediated by differential student teacher intake. Data from multilevel models reveal that effects on MCK are in general larger than on MPCK. Gender, prior knowledge and OTL in mathematics are significantly related to both types of outcomes whereas other background characteristics affect MPCK only. Motivation mediates the effects of prior knowledge and the OTL effects are partly mediated by teacher intake. Consequences for educational policy are discussed based on these results. Policymakers have on the one hand to be aware of the continuing problem of societal inequalities. Providing OTL in mathematics as well as increasing entrance selectivity may, on the other hand, have positive consequences for the outcomes of primary teacher education.

The conceptualisation of mathematics competencies in the international teacher education study TEDS-M

The main aim of the international teacher education study Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics (TEDS-M), carried out under the auspices of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), was to understand how national policies and institutional practices influence the outcomes of mathematics teacher education. This paper reports on the definition of effective mathematics teacher education in TEDS-M, distinguishing between mathematics content knowledge and mathematics pedagogical content knowledge as essential cognitive components of mathematics teachers’ professional competencies. These competence facets were implemented as proficiency tests based on extensive coordination and validation processes by experts from all participating countries. International acceptance of the tests was accomplished whereas, by necessity, national specifications had to be left out, as is common in comparative large-scale assessments. In this paper, the nature of the TEDS-M tests for the primary study is analysed and commented on detail. The aims are to increase our understanding of mathematics content knowledge and mathematics pedagogical content knowledge, which are still fuzzy domains, to provide a substantive background for interpretations of the test results and to examine whether some educational traditions may be more accurately reflected in the test items than others. For this purpose, several items that have been released by the IEA are presented and elaborately analysed in order to substantiate the test design of TEDS-M. Our main conclusion is that the overall validity of the TEDS-M tests can be regarded as a given, but that readers have to be aware of limitations, amongst others from a continental European point of view.

Empirische Studien zur Wirksamkeit der Mathematiklehrerausbildung

Die international vergleichende Lehrerbildungsstudie TEDS-M wurde von der International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) aufbauend auf TIMSS und PISA als Reaktion auf die kontinuierliche Kritik an der Lehrerausbildung beschlossen. Die Kritik an der Lehrerbildung und ihrer geringen Wirksamkeit ist sehr alt und wurde bereits Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts von Klein (1908) als „Doppelte Diskontinuitat“ beschrieben. Allerdings lagen bis dato keine gesicherten Erkenntnisse uber deren Wirksamkeit vor. Die umfassenden Reformdiskurse liefern allerdings Hinweise auf Wirkungsannahmen, die mit TEDS-M am Beispiel der Ausbildung von zukunftigen Mathematiklehrerinnen und -lehrern in den Klassen 4 und 8 uberpruft wurden:

A Situated Approach to Assess Teachers’ Professional Competencies Using Classroom Videos

Teaching practice and its representation by videos are a central part of many empirical studies concerning the field of teaching and learning. In order to analyze how videos can help to investigate aspects of teachers’ expertise, the data from 131 primary mathematics teachers who participated in the TEDS-Follow-Up study were evaluated. The teachers answered questions referring to scripted video-clips describing classroom situations. The questions were qualitatively analyzed covering the spectrum of aspects mentioned by the teachers and its relation to aspects of teachers’ expertise. The analyses showed that teachers notice and mention a great number of aspects that were either directly observable in the video-clip shown, or could be identified using the given information. In addition, it is pointed out that teachers with high professional knowledge notice possible reasons for a student’s error more accurately, while teachers with low professional knowledge focus on aspects that are not directly connected to the student’s learning.

Exemplarische Analyse mathematischer und mathematikdidaktischer Items im internationalen Vergleich

Im Rahmen der internationalen Lehrerbildungsstudie TEDS-M (Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics) wurde im Jahre 2008 in 15 Landern das mathematische und mathematikdidaktische Wissen von insgesamt rund 13.000 angehenden Primarstufenlehrkraften am Ende ihrer Ausbildung als substantielle Komponente einer professionellen Kompetenz in einem Leistungstest erhoben. Die Konzeption dieses Tests wird im Folgenden beschrieben und zwei in TEDS-M eingesetzte Aufgaben werden exemplarisch vorgestellt. Die Konzeption der gesamten Studie ist dargestellt in Tatto u.a. (2008). Eine detaillierte Beschreibung der Stichprobe, der Untersuchungsinstrumente sowie erster Ergebnisse wurde veroffentlicht in Blomeke, Kaiser und Lehmann (2010a,b).