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Comparing how college mathematics instructors and high-school teachers recognize professional obligations of mathematics teaching when making instructional decisions

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Abstract

This paper investigates how mathematics instructors' recognition of the professional obligations of mathematics teaching varies based on their institutional environment, specifically whether they teach high school or college mathematics. Using an instrument that measures instructors’ recognition of four hypothesized professional obligations, we surveyed 471 US high school mathematics teachers and 239 university mathematics instructors to measure the extent to which they recognized professional obligations when evaluating the appropriateness of certain instructional actions. After testing measurement invariance of four item sets, each of which measures one of the four hypothesized professional obligations—disciplinary, institutional, interpersonal, and individual obligations-, we compared the instructors’ recognition of each of the four obligations between the two groups. We found that university instructors recognized the institutional obligation more than high school teachers, while recognizing the individual and interpersonal obligations significantly less. This investigation provides insight into the variation in the nature of mathematics teaching practice across different levels of schooling.

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© 2014, The Regents of the University of Michigan, all rights reserved, used with permission

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© 2014, 2018 The Regents of the University of Michigan, all rights reserved, used with permission

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Notes

  1. 441, 448, 435, 471 for disciplinary, institutional, interpersonal, and individual PROSE instruments, respectively.

  2. 211, 217, 205, 236 for disciplinary, institutional, interpersonal, and individual PROSE instruments, respectively.

  3. This presents a threat to content validity that we address in the limitations.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Inah Ko

  2. Marsal Family School of Education, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Patricio Herbst

  3. Puget Sound College and Career Network, Puget Sound Educational Service District, Renton, WA, USA

    Mollee Shultz

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  1. Inah Ko
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  2. Patricio Herbst
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  3. Mollee Shultz
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Correspondence to Inah Ko.

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This work was done with the support of grants DRL-0918425 and DUE-1725837 to Patricio Herbst. All opinions are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the foundation.

Appendices

Appendix A

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Table 4 Disciplinary obligation: Mean and estimated standardized factor loading of each item
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4,

Table 5 Institutional obligation: Mean and estimated standardized factor loading of each item
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5,

Table 6 Interpersonal obligation: Mean and estimated standardized factor loading of each item
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6 and

Table 7 Individual obligation: Mean and estimated standardized factor loading of each item
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7.

Appendix B

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Table 8 Internal consistency of each instrument
Full size table

8.

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Ko, I., Herbst, P. & Shultz, M. Comparing how college mathematics instructors and high-school teachers recognize professional obligations of mathematics teaching when making instructional decisions. J Math Teacher Educ (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10857-023-09595-2

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