Investigation of preservice and inservice teachers' mathematics related beliefs in Turkey and the perceived effect of middle school mathematics education program and the school contexts on these beliefs

Teachers' beliefs have been a major focus of educational research due to their influence on teachers' practice. Understanding teachers' beliefs and the processes in which beliefs are formed provides information for teacher training programs. Therefore, teacher education programs and beginning years in teaching are investigated for their effect on the preservice and beginning teachers' beliefs.;This study explored Turkish preservice and inservice (first-year) middle school mathematics teachers' mathematics related beliefs. Preservice participants were 20 students from 2nd, 3rd, and 4 th year levels of a middle school mathematics teacher education program who were interviewed in 2004. Inservice participants were 12 first-year teachers who were interviewed both when they graduated from the same teacher education program in 2003 and after they completed first-year teaching in 2004. Additionally, a professor in the department was interviewed on his perspectives about program's impact on preservice teachers' beliefs.;Participants' beliefs were investigated in relation to the teacher education program and inservice teachers' first-year teaching experiences. A combination of three frameworks which categorizes the developmental levels of teachers' mathematics related beliefs was used in order to detect the belief expressions in preservice and inservice teachers' interview data.;The results indicated that teacher education program courses did not generally have a significant impact on participants' mathematics related beliefs since program courses did not attempt to change preservice teachers' beliefs. When a course was specifically designed to challenge preservice teachers' beliefs, there was some impact on mathematics related beliefs. Program courses lacked sufficient practice in which preservice teachers would implement their course experiences in the national curriculum context.;The national curriculum pace and students' differences in knowledge level were unexpected for the participants since they were not sufficiently prepared for teaching in real-classroom settings. Although inservice participants had both student-centered and teacher-centered beliefs, their teaching practices were mostly influenced by teacher-centered beliefs. The real-classroom context affected inservice participants' beliefs and practices towards teacher-centered teaching.;The study addresses the need for organization of courses that would challenge preservice teachers' beliefs, more real-classroom practice in teacher education program courses, and a better first-year mentorship policy to support beginning teachers.