The preparation of Mathematics Teachers in Australia - ACDS

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Table 3.4 Senior school mathematics subjects offered by the schools surveyed, as reported by heads of mathematics departments. Senior school mathematics subjects 1 Proportion of surveyed schools offering this subject (%) Elementary mathematics 87.2 Intermediate mathematics 94.0 Advanced mathematics 63.8 Combinations of seniors school mathematics subjects Proportion of surveyed schools offering this subject combination (%) Elementary only 3.7 Intermediate only 2.8 Elementary and Intermediate only 27.5 Elementary, Intermediate and Advanced 56.0 Intermediate and Advanced only 7.6 Advanced only 0.2 none (offered only ‘other’ senior 2.1 mathematics subjects) 1 Categories based on those described by Barrington & Brown (2005) – see Appendix 2 for details. taught at all three school levels. Most (73%) were involved in senior school teaching, but only ten percent were teaching only senior school. This ‘broad’ pattern of teaching in mathematics contrasts with the findings from a previous study undertaken into secondary school science teaching 8 . Science teachers in secondary schools were more likely to teach only senior school (21% science, cf 10% for mathematics) and less likely to teach across all school levels (17% for science, cf 35% for mathematics). Almost 50 per cent of mathematics teachers taught non-mathematics subjects and one in four taught senior school subjects other than mathematics (Table 3.6). The non-mathematics subjects most commonly taught by mathematics teachers were junior and middle school science (18% & 19% of teachers, respectively). Teachers of senior school mathematics were the least likely to be involved in non-mathematics teaching (37%; n=779/2116), and this was particularly true for the large group of mathematics teachers who taught across all school levels. Fewer that thirty per cent of these teachers were involved in teaching subjects other than mathematics (n=285/1021; Table 3.6). As reported in Section 3.1, the teaching patterns of mathematics teachers in New South Wales differed from their peers in the other two largest states, Victoria and Queensland. On average, mathematics teachers in New South Wales schools taught a broader range of mathematics subjects and were less likely to teach non-mathematics subjects (Tables 3.7 & 3.8). Nearly 30 per cent taught both intermediate and advanced mathematics at senior school level (cf 5% Vic & 12% QLD), and only 25 per cent taught non-mathematics subjects (cf 64% QLD & 62% Vic) (Table 3.8). These differences cannot be accounted for by differences in school year ranges. For each state, the majority of teachers responding to the survey were from schools offering junior, middle and senior school subjects (NSW 90%; Vic 80%; QLD 95%). 8 Harris, Jensz & Baldwin (2005) Table 3.6, page 11. 11
Table 3.5 The number of respondents teaching the various combinations of junior, middle and senior school mathematics, their average age and years of teaching experience Combinations of junior, middle and senior school mathematics taught by individual teachers Junior school n=1730 solid block = ‘taught’ empty (white) = ‘not taught’ Middle school n=2022 Senior school n=1992 Number of teachers 1 , followed by percentage of all 2 respondents (n) (%) Mean age (years) Mean teaching experience (years) 273 9.41 39.1 11.6 343 11.82 42.1 14.5 169 5.83 43.5 16.3 178 6.14 43.3 17.3 613 21.13 45.6 19.4 304 10.48 46.6 21.4 1021 35.19 44.3 17.6 2901 2 100.00 44.0 17.3 1 85 per cent of responding teachers were from schools teaching all year levels (ie junior, middle and senior). See also Table 3.6 2 23 teachers responding to the survey did not list mathematics subjects among their teaching responsibilities at the time of the survey 12
Page 2 and 3: The Preparation of Mathematics Teac
Page 4 and 5: Contents Contents..................
Page 6 and 7: Table 6.3 Average age of secondary
Page 8 and 9: Recommendations: The Australian Cou
Page 10 and 11: • Heads of mathematics expressed
Page 12: Acknowledgements This report was pr
Page 15 and 16: Chapter 2: The study’s purpose, m
Page 17 and 18: Questions involving named school su
Page 19 and 20: Box 1: Definitions of selected term
Page 21 and 22: Table 3.1 Responses to survey of he
Page 23: 60.0% 50.0% 40.0% New South Wales Q
Page 27 and 28: Table 3.7 Range of teaching respons
Page 29 and 30: • The expectation of most heads w
Page 31 and 32: In light of the recognised differen
Page 33 and 34: Chapter 5: Mathematics teachers - t
Page 35 and 36: Table 5.2 Number of units of mathem
Page 37 and 38: 100% 80% 60% 40% major less than ma
Page 39 and 40: Table 5.6 Teachers’ perceptions o
Page 41 and 42: Table 5.7 Teachers’ comments rega
Page 43 and 44: Further analysis revealed a relatio
Page 45 and 46: 5.6 Tertiary qualifications of math
Page 47 and 48: Table 6.1 Responses received to the
Page 49 and 50: difference was marked by a ‘spike
Page 51 and 52: 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 20
Page 53 and 54: 250 200 < 5 yrs experience (n=479)
Page 55 and 56: Table 6.8 Career plans of early car
Page 57 and 58: Chapter 7: Recruiting and retaining
Page 59 and 60: In previous years I have had little
Page 61 and 62: 7.2 The career plans of mathematics
Page 63 and 64: (Yes) - Getting too old to teach PE
Page 65 and 66: have contributed to this trend, inc
Page 67 and 68: Chapter 8: What attracts people to
Page 69 and 70: 8.2 Suggestions for attracting more
Page 71 and 72: Chapter 9: Conclusions The growing
Page 73 and 74: Appendix 1: Schools surveyed - addi
Page 75 and 76:
Table A1.4 Number of responses from
Page 77 and 78:
Appendix 3: Demographics of mathema
Page 79:
References Barrington, F. and Brown
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