An Empirical Study On The Structure And Level Of Professional Knowledge For Pre-service Mathematics Teachers

As teachers' professional development has become a research hotspot in the field of teacher education,the demand for "quantity" of teachers in countries has gradually changed to the demand for "quality".One of the core research contents is teachers' knowledge.Teachers' knowledge is not only an important index to evaluate the teachers' professional quality,but also an important factor to measure the teaching level of teachers.The quality of teacher education determines the quality of education,and the quality of pre-service teacher education is the fundamental part to ensure the quality of teacher education.What kind of professional knowledge structure and level pre-service teachers need to have,can meet the talent demand of high quality education,has been widely concerned by educational researchers and educators.Teachers' professional knowledge is the basis of teachers' professional development.The research on pre-service teachers' professional knowledge can reflect the initial state of teachers' professional knowledge.This study focuses on the professional knowledge structure and level of pre-service mathematics teachers,which is divided into three sub questions.(1)What kind of professional knowledge structure does a pre-service mathematics teacher should have? We obtain the professional knowledge structure that qualified mathematics teachers need to possess from the perspective of front-line teachers through interviews and investigations,and take it as the reference standard of professional knowledge structure of pre-service mathematics teachers.This knowledge structure is teachers' subjective understanding,which can also be called teachers' expected professional knowledge structure.(2)What is the mastery level of professional knowledge of pre-service mathematics teachers? We can understand the current situation of pre-service mathematics teachers' professional knowledge through a test,get the actual professional knowledge structure,and then use the level division to describe the mastery degrees of pre-service mathematics teachers' professional knowledge.(3)Is the actual professional knowledge structure of pre-service mathematics teachers consistent with the expected professional knowledge structure of front-line teachers? We discuss the rationality of the professional knowledge structure of pre-service mathematics teachers,and then clarify the future direction of pre-service mathematics teachers through the comparison.This study adopts the method of combining quantitative research and qualitative research,mainly quantitative research,supplemented by qualitative research.For sub question(1),the weights of all kinds of professional knowledge the qualified mathematics teachers should have,is obtained by investigating the importance of professional knowledge from the perspective of teachers.Firstly,through literature review and interviews,the professional knowledge framework of mathematics teachers is constructed,and the questionnaire is compiled.Then,a questionnaire survey is carried out for the front-line teachers,and the teachers give the weights of all kinds of professional knowledge according to their teaching experience.Finally,according to the statistical analysis of the survey data,the professional knowledge structure of qualified mathematics teachers is obtained,and the quantitative results are supplemented and explained through interviews.For sub question(2),we investigate the current situation and mastery level of pre-service mathematics teachers' professional knowledge through the test.Firstly,through sorting out the real questions of mathematics subject knowledge and teaching ability(senior high school)in teacher qualification examination over the years,the examination proportion,question type and scores of all kinds of knowledge are made clear.Then,according to the survey results of sub question(1),the content,type and score of the test are determined,the test questions are sampled,combined,and the scoring criteria are set.Next,the students from one normal university under the Ministry of Education,one provincial normal university and two provincial normal colleges,were investigated and tested.Finally,according to the statistical analysis of the test data,the actual professional knowledge structure and level of preservice mathematics teachers are obtained.For sub question(3),based on the data analysis results of the first two sub questions,we discuss the actual professional knowledge structure of pre-service mathematics teachers,the consistency and rationality between the professional knowledge structure of pre-service mathematics teachers under different knowledge mastery levels and the professional knowledge structure expected by teachers,combined with teacher interviews.The conclusions are as follows:(1)In the professional knowledge structure of qualified mathematics teachers,the weight of mathematics subject knowledge is the largest.From the perspective of teachers,qualified mathematics teachers should possess three kinds of professional knowledge sorted by their weights: mathematics subject knowledge(45.20%),mathematics teaching knowledge(30.71%)and mathematics curriculum knowledge(24.09%).The knowledge structure can be divided into three types.Different groups of teachers have the similar views on the weights of all kinds of knowledge.(2)Pre-service mathematics teachers can basically master the professional knowledge of mathematics.In the practical knowledge structure,the weight of mathematics subject knowledge is the largest.The mastery of preservice mathematics teachers' professional knowledge can be divided into four levels form low to high: pre level,memorization level,relevance level and comprehensive level.There are significant differences in the scores of professional knowledge test of pre-service mathematics teachers in different types of normal institutions of higher education,and the scores from high to low are: normal university under the Ministry of Education,provincial normal university,provincial normal colleges.(3)In the practical knowledge structure of pre-service mathematics teachers,the weight order of all kinds of knowledge is consistent with the professional knowledge structure expected by teachers,that is,the practical knowledge structure of preservice mathematics teachers is reasonable.The professional knowledge structure of four levels of pre-service mathematics teachers is also reasonable.The weight of subject knowledge expected by teachers is lower than the actual weight of subject knowledge of pre-service mathematics teachers,but the weight of teaching knowledge expected by teachers is higher than the actual weight of teaching knowledge of pre-service mathematics teachers.The reason for this phenomenon is the lack of teaching experience of pre-service mathematics teachers.According to the above research conclusions,this paper puts forward relevant suggestions for the education of pre-service mathematics teachers.First,pre-service mathematics teachers should focus on theoretical knowledge learning.Second,pre-service mathematics teachers should improve the reserve of teaching knowledge.