The preparation of Mathematics Teachers in Australia - ACDS

More documents

Recommendations

Info

100% 80% 60% 40% no unsure probably yes 20% 0% < 25 25 - 29 30 - 34 35 - 39 40 - 44 45 - 49 50 - 54 55 - 59 60 + age (years) 100% 80% 60% 40% no unsure probably yes 20% 0%
Chapter 8: What attracts people to a career in mathematics teaching? With the impending retirement of large numbers of mathematics teachers nationally, universities, governments and schools face the current and future challenge of attracting people to mathematics teaching as a career. Education faculties in universities have a direct and vested interest in attracting suitably prepared students into teaching programs. Science faculties recognise their role in the preparation of future teachers of science and mathematics, and also appreciate the critical role that school teachers play in preparing school students for tertiary study. Governments play important roles through funding and policy initiatives that support universities, schools and trainee-teachers. And schools face the practical challenge of recruiting suitably qualified teachers. Insights into what motivates people to become teachers can inform decision making by each of these stakeholders. In this study, teachers were asked to explain their reasons for choosing a career in teaching. The findings are reported in Section 8.1. Both heads of mathematics and teachers were also invited to offer suggestions for attracting more, suitably qualified people to mathematics teaching. Their comments are summarised in Section 8.2. 8.1 Mathematics teachers’ original motivations Teachers of mathematics were asked what attracted them to a career in teaching. They were offered six options (see Table 8.1) and an opportunity to list any other factors. The responses are presented in Table 8.1. Most teachers cited multiple motivations. Three in five teachers gave the ‘rewarding nature of the profession’ as motivation for choosing a teaching career (Table 8.1). Nearly half cited their ‘love of mathematics’ (49%), with far fewer teachers listing ‘salary’ as a motivation (16%). Male teachers were less motivated by enthusiasm for the discipline, and more by issues of salary and job security, than their female colleagues (Table 8.2). Half of the respondents from government schools stated they were originally attracted to the teaching profession by the job security offered, while less than one third of teachers from Catholic or independent schools indicated that this was a decisive factor (Table 8.2). Salary was a factor for almost one in five teachers in government schools, but for significantly fewer Catholic school teachers (p
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 and 24: 60.0% 50.0% 40.0% New South Wales Q
Page 25 and 26: Table 3.5 The number of respondents
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: have contributed to this trend, inc
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
show all

The preparation of Mathematics Teachers in Australia - ACDS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?