Botswana preservice primary teachers' beliefs about and attitudes toward mathematics

The purpose of this study was to investigate influence of preservice teachers' beliefs about and attitudes toward mathematics on their mathematics performance. The study was also to investigate the relationship between the preservice teachers' beliefs about mathematics and the teaching of mathematics in primary schools.;Several questions brought me to this study. As a former PTTC mathematics lecturer, I heard student teachers' comments regularly about how much they disliked mathematics, and I also experienced student teachers' enthusiasm in learning mathematics. I had wondered how much of their experiences in learning and teaching mathematics would unfold, and I found myself wanting to make some sense out of what I was hearing. I had always wondered about how student teachers' views of mathematics affected their mathematics performance.;Six first year PTTC preservice teachers at Lobatse PTTC were selected and participated in the study for four months starting from November 1994 to February 1995. Two were later withdrawn from the program, and the remaining four participants became my main informants.;Qualitative case study research methodology was used to collect, analyze, and present data. Data were collected through observation, interviews, and from preservice primary teachers' written work. Open ended interviews were conducted to provide me with the opportunity to understand how the preservice teachers' beliefs about and attitudes toward mathematics affected their performance in mathematics.;During data collection I found that the student teachers would be going for their first student teaching. That provided me with the opportunity to observe the student teachers practicing what they said they believed about mathematics teaching in primary schools.;The results from this study indicated that the preservice teachers' beliefs about the nature of mathematics have relationship with how they learn mathematics. They memorize facts and procedures without clear understanding of the concepts to be learned. Students with less confidence in mathematics rely heavily on memorization when learning mathematics. On the other hand, students with confidence in mathematics attempt to understand the problem in a holistic manner.;The results further indicated that there are some inconsistencies between what the preservice teachers believe about mathematics and what they actually do in a primary school classroom situation. During their student teaching, the student teachers tended to use teacher-centered methods rather than child-centered methods even though they believe child-centered methods are more appropriate for teaching mathematics. The inconsistencies seem to be caused by the fact that some student teachers are afraid to try methods they have not experienced or seen used.