| The current mathematics reform movement challenges the classroom, school, and societal obligations that characterize teachers' roles in the school mathematics tradition. Policymakers, as well as parents, often look for a more traditional, rather than reformed, mathematics classroom. A community's traditional beliefs about mathematics can impede the mathematics reform movement. The current efforts to reform mathematics instruction focus on the need to change the public's beliefs and attitudes about mathematics. Affective issues can serve as barriers to the implementation of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Standards. The areas of affect that were of particular interest in this study were teachers' beliefs in reference to mathematics instruction. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between experienced elementary school teachers' mathematics beliefs and mathematics teaching practices. A secondary purpose was to look at the various affective and cognitive factors that affected teachers' beliefs in mathematics instruction.;Getting teachers to change their beliefs about the nature of mathematics and how they teach mathematics was difficult for many reasons. Long-held, deeply rooted conceptions of mathematics and its teaching were hard to modify. Participants have opportunities to define their own mathematics beliefs and practice on a five-level scale ranging from traditional to nontraditional. Teachers were observed teaching mathematics to compare their stated beliefs to their actual teaching practices. These observations were transcribed according to the parameters categorized in the five-level scale. Teachers then participated in a concept-mapping activity to provide information about their perceptions of relationships between, and influences on, beliefs and practices. A questionnaire and three surveys were completed at the end of the study to identify key influences on practice.;Data were analyzed by using the components of the beliefs-practice model. Data were reviewed and classified into one of three areas: actual teaching practices (observations), influences on beliefs, and practice and the consistency between beliefs and practice (concept-mapping and interview), and beliefs about the nature of mathematics, about learning mathematics, and about teaching mathematics (questionnaire and surveys). The results can be used in the planning of mathematics staff development activities for teachers. |
