ABSTRACT

Often pre-service early childhood and elementary teachers, many who are female, feel they are not good at math and appear uncomfortable at the prospect of teaching math. Given the influence pre-service teachers’ attitudes toward math might have on their learning, as well as that of their future students, examining the precursors of mathematical self-efficacy will prove helpful to instructors teaching math in elementary education coursework. Of relevance to the current study, some findings indicate achievement goals are linked to one’s self-efficacy for successfully completing mathematical tasks. However, published studies have not yet examined how the four achievement goals influence the self-efficacy for mathematical learning among pre-service elementary education students. Therefore, a unique purpose of this research is to focus on how achievement goals predict math self-efficacy among 163 female pre-service teachers enrolled in undergraduate elementary education math methods courses. Results reported here are part of a larger study examining pre-service teachers’ achievement goals for mathematical learning. Both mastery-approach and performance-approach goals were positive predictors of pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy for learning mathematics, while math anxiety predicted lower rates of self-efficacy.

摘要

幼儿和小学的职前教师（其中许多是女性）常常觉得自己不擅长数学，并且对教授数学的前景感到不安。鉴于职前教师对数学的态度可能会影响他们的学习，以及他们未来学生的学习，检查数学自我效能感的前兆将证明有助于教师在基础教育课程中教授数学。与当前研究相关的是，一些发现表明成就目标与一个人成功完成数学任务的自我效能有关。然而，已发表的研究尚未检验这四个成就目标如何影响职前基础教育学生的数学学习自我效能感。所以，这项研究的一个独特目的是关注成就目标如何预测 163 名就读本科基础教育数学方法课程的女职前教师的数学自我效能感。此处报告的结果是一项大型研究的一部分，该研究考察了职前教师的数学学习成就目标。掌握方法和表现方法目标都是职前教师学习数学的自我效能感的积极预测因素，而数学焦虑预测自我效能率较低。