ELEMENTARY TEACHER EDUCATION AND TEACHER

EFFICACY TOWARD MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE

Wu, S. C. Chang, Y. L.
National Chiayi University MingDao University

Elementary teacher education in Taiwan has been facing the dilemma of cultivating
prospective teachers to be generalists or specialists for certain subject areas since
1997. Referring to the significant factors affecting teacher education, “teacher
efficacy” deserves to be in the heart of this dilemmatic evolution. This study aimed to
compare prospective teachers’ efficacy toward mathematics and science of ten
preparation programs. Findings indicated that the more subject-matter preparations
the superior efficacy was established. It further provided a deliberation on how to
prepare elementary teachers.

INTRODUCTION
A large and growing body of research data indicate that the preparation and ongoing
professional development of teachers in mathematics and science for grades K-12
needs rethinking and improvement on a large scale (e.g., Holmes Group, 1995;
Hwang, 2003; National Research Council [NRC], 2001; National Science
Foundation, 1996; Rodriguez, 1998; Sanders & Rivers, 1996; Wright et al., 1997;
Wu, 2004). While re-examining the effectiveness of the design of teacher
preparation programs, it indicates that the traditional design of teacher preparation
programs are oriented in cultivating elementary generalists (NRC, 2001).
Furthermore, for instance, “too often, teacher preparation programs are characterized
by a lack of coherence and articulation across the general education, science
education, and professional education curriculum strands” (NRC, 1997, p. 9). Even
though most programs currently require prospective elementary school teachers to
have a major in a discipline other than education, few of them choose majors in
mathematics or science. Within this trend of program designing, prospective teachers
received inadequate preparation in certain subject areas, for instance, mathematics
and science (education). It led to the insufficiency of in-depth content knowledge
and conceptual understanding of and efficacy toward mathematics and science
needed for teaching these subjects effectively at all grades.
With regard to Taiwan, the design of all teacher preparation programs encountered
significant changes beginning in 1997. Perspective teachers who entered the teachers
college were categorized into different departments (programs), such as Departments
of Mathematics Education for students’ major in mathematics education. Usually,
there were eleven departments in one teachers college1, including Departments of
Mathematics Education (DME), Science Education (DSE), Elementary Education
(DEE), Language Education (DLE), Art Education (DAE), Social Science Education
(DSS), Music Education (DMU), Early Childhood Education (DEC), Special
2006. In Novotná, J., Moraová, H., Krátká, M. & Stehlíková, N. (Eds.). Proceedings 30th Conference of the
International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, Vol. 5, pp. 417-424. Prague: PME. 5 - 417
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Education (DSP), Physical Education (DPE), and Department of Children’s English
Education (DCE). The purpose of separating the whole teacher preparation system
by subject matter was to train all prospective teachers to be not only generalists but
also specialists in certain subject areas. Following this movement, the teacher
preparation programs were modified by having more detailed separation of functions
enabling all new teachers to master the subject matter they would teach in the
classroom. In addition, there were several new departments established, e.g. DSP
and DCE, as well as many graduate schools of education in various subject areas or
for diverse purposes. All of these efforts in restructuring the teacher preparation
programs were to ensure that there would be well-qualified teachers who had
different specialties in every elementary school. This idea just confirmed the
previous recommendation (Romberg, 1994) from participants at a 1993 conference
sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, the NCTM, and the Wisconsin
Center for Education Research.
However, there are ongoing innovative projects of the teacher education system in
Taiwan, e.g. named as “New Regulations of Teacher Education” (Ministry of
Education [MOE], Taiwan, 1999), “The Incorporation of Public Universities and
Colleges” (MOE, Taiwan, 2002), and “2004 Education in Republic of China” (MOE,
Taiwan, 2004). In this movement, teachers colleges are promoted alone or
incorporated with other public colleges to become universities of education or
comprehensive universities. The teacher preparation program design within these
universities is changed again in order to align to the worldwide trend of
reconstructing the higher education system, such as reforms in Australia,
Netherlands, England, Germany, Japan, the United States, and so forth (MOE,
Taiwan, 2002). Programs are oriented to train generalists because of two major
strategies of “merging” and “reorienting”. In “merging”, Department of Education
(DE) and DEC are the main programs for training elementary prospective teachers.
As mentioned above, this kind of program design will result in inadequate
preparations for some major subject areas, e.g. mathematics and science, in the
elementary level. In “reorienting”, DME is renamed as Department of Applied
Mathematics, which emphasizes more in applied mathematics but rather mathematics
education. Nevertheless, there will be more mathematicians prepared by this
program but rather qualified elementary mathematics teachers, which is still the key
issue in this maelstrom of the education debate.
Teacher efficacy and teacher quality
The concept of teacher’s sense of efficacy has gained much attention in recent years
(Pajares, 1992). “Beginning with research in the 1970s (e.g., Armor et al., 1976;
Berman et al., 1977), teacher efficacy was first conceptualized as teachers’ general
capacity to influence student performance” (Allinder, 1995, p.247). Since then, the
concept of teacher’s sense of efficacy has developed continuously and currently is
discussed relevant to Albert Bandura’s (1977) theory of self-efficacy, which indicates
the significance of teachers’ beliefs in their own capabilities in relation to the effects
of student learning and achievement. The self-efficacy construct described by

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Bandura was composed of two cognitive dimensions, personal self-efficacy and
outcome expectancy. Bandura (1977) defined personal self-efficacy (i.e. efficacy
expectation) as “the conviction that one can successfully execute the behavior
required to produce the outcomes” and outcome expectancy as “a person’s estimate
that a given behavior will lead to certain outcomes” (p. 193).
Several studies further reported, “Teacher efficacy has been identified as a variable
accounting for individual differences in teaching effectiveness” (Gibson & Dembo,
1984, p. 569) and had a strong relationship with student learning and achievement
(Allinder, 1995; Gibson & Dembo, 1984; Madison, 1997). Berman et al. (1977)
reported that teacher efficacy had the strongest relationships with the student gain in
learning, with a standardized regression coefficient of .21 for sense of efficacy with
improvement in student achievement as the dependent variable (Denham & Michael,
1981). Later, Allinder (1995) concluded, “Teachers with high personal efficacy and
high teaching efficacy increased end-of-year goals more often for their students …
Teachers with high personal efficacy effected significantly greater growth” (p. 247).
Teacher education and teacher efficacy
Accordingly, which kind of design is better for preparing elementary prospective
teachers, especially for certain subject areas, one program for the generalists or
several separated programs for teachers with variety of majors? It will be definitely a
dilemma within this teacher education reform in both Taiwan and countries
worldwide. How to discover the appropriate practice for designing programs of
training elementary teachers will be also the core in this educational action plan.
With regard to factors affecting the teacher preparation, a statement in Ashton’s
(1984) study addressed the significance of “teacher’s sense of efficacy” to teacher
education:
A powerful paradigm for teacher education can be developed on the basis of the construct
of teacher efficacy. Ashton asserts that no other teacher characteristic has demonstrated
such a consistent relationship to student achievement. A teacher education program that
has as its aim the development of teacher efficacy, and which includes the essential
components of a motivation change program, should develop teachers who possess the
motivation essential for effective classroom performance (p. 28).
Benz et al. (1992) further recommended, “Helping pre-service teachers to construct
beliefs that most positively effect their decision-making in the classroom is an
important effort in teacher education reform” (p. 284). Accordingly, a comparative
examination of the teacher efficacy as the factor of the effectiveness of teacher
preparation programs may help to clarify elements for improving teacher quality as
well as remodelling teacher preparation programs.

PURPOSE AND METHOD

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of elementary
teacher preparation program designs by examining perspective teachers’ efficacy
toward mathematics and science among targeted students. Further, the relationship

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in the sense of efficacy toward mathematics and science among all participants was
also explored. Altogether, there were ten different programs within the
participating college, a national teachers college located at the central part of
Taiwan, and 340 participants totally. A quasi-experimental research design with
pre- and post-tests was applied in this study. Two standardized instruments, i.e.
Mathematics Teaching Efficacy Beliefs Instruments for pre-service teachers
(MTEBI, Enochs, Smith, & Huinker, 2000) and Science Teaching Efficacy Beliefs
Instruments for pre-service teachers (STEBI, Enochs & Riggs, 1990), and a
Participant Main Survey were applied to ascertain the outcomes of pre-service
teachers’ sense of efficacy toward mathematics and science and compare the
differences among these ten different programs. These three instruments were first
administered to these 340 freshmen (the first year of entering the programs) as a
pre-test. Then, these instruments were administered again to the same students (as
seniors at the forth year) as a post-test. Data were collected, entered, and
reorganized right after receiving. Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses
(i.e. ANCOVA) were applied in this study associated with a detailed documentation
analysis of the curriculum structure and course works.

FINDING AND DISCUSSION

Both of pre-service teachers’ sense of efficacy toward mathematics and science found
in this study were significantly different among these ten programs. According to the
findings of the study, students in DME had a superior rating in the cognitive
dimension of Personal Mathematics Teaching Efficacy (PMTE), while students in
DSE scored higher in Personal Science Teaching Efficacy (PSTE). After receiving
four-year training, both groups of students (i.e. DME and DSE) had more confidence
in their own teaching abilities than other students who did not specialize in either
2
mathematics or science (i.e. remained eight programs ), shown as table 1. However,
considering the highest mean scores of PMTE and PSTE, DME and DSE students
only had approximately 74 percent of confidence in their own teaching abilities. This
information provides another warning for all teacher preparation programs: If these
pre-service teachers believed they were not ready to assume the teaching
responsibility, i.e. they have low confidence in their future teaching ability, teaching
quality is potentially jeopardized. Therefore, how to increase the confidence level of
these prospective teachers for future teaching is an additional issue and task for
teacher preparation programs.
Program DME DSE DEE DLE DAE DSS DMU DEC DSP DPE
PMTE 48.79 46.97 43.88 41.74 43.50 42.97 40.47 42.56 42.68 42.38
SD 3.179 5.363 5.830 7.085 5.733 3.520 5.915 4.737 5.050 4.278
PSTE 46.09 57.32 46.68 44.21 46.62 41.68 43.24 43.38 45.24 45.41
SD 5.627 7.388 9.644 5.793 6.818 6.834 8.268 9.293 7.878 4.762

Table 1: Mean Scores (and SD) of PMTE and PSTE in the Post-test

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Another finding showed that students in DME had a significantly superior rating in
the cognitive dimension of Mathematics Teaching Outcome Expectancy (MTOE),
while students in DSE scored higher in Science Teaching Outcome Expectancy
(STOE) but no significance, shown as table 2. Data indicated that all students
(prospective teachers) had a range from 60 to 80 percent belief that students’ learning
can be influenced by effective teaching. However, as indicated above, they did not
have adequate confidence in providing efficient teaching in the classroom. Thus,
even though they believed effective teaching was essential for students’ learning and
achievement, the quality of teaching and learning could still not be guaranteed. As
Gibson and Dembo (1984) stated, teachers with high efficacy should “persist longer,
provide a greater academic focus in the classroom, and exhibit different types of
feedback than teachers’ who have lower expectations concerning their ability to
influence student learning” (p.570). Teacher preparation programs need to discover
ways to improve the ratings of both personal teaching efficacy and teaching outcome
expectancy of their pre-service teachers in order to improve the quality of teaching
and learning in all elementary classrooms.
Program DME DSE DEE DLE DAE DSS DMU DEC DSP DPE
MTOE 32.09 27.76 28.09 26.24 27.79 27.29 28.00 28.12 27.44 27.74
SD 2.515 4.171 3.671 4.286 2.952 2.541 4.097 3.506 3.526 4.287
STOE 39.41 39.65 40.32 38.03 37.59 38.44 38.74 38.06 38.56 37.09
SD 4.046 6.545 6.034 5.248 4.432 3.145 4.882 4.832 4.134 5.294

Table 2: Mean Scores (and SD) of MTOE and STOE in the Post-test

Correlations coefficients were computed among the three scores of each category, i.e.
Mathematics Total Score, Science Total Score, PMTE, MTOE, PSTE, and STOE in
the post-test. Significant correlation was found between teachers’ sense of efficacy
toward mathematics and science (i.e. total score). Data also indicated that there were
statistically significant relationship between PMTE and PSTE, MTOE and STOE,
PMTE and MTOE, and PSTE and STOE. This valuable information provides teacher
preparation programs with sufficient reason to devote attention to establishing their
prospective teachers’ confidence by increasing the connections between the
preparations of mathematics and science. Additionally, they may also endeavor to
make more efforts on assisting these pre-service teachers to build up both their
personal teaching efficacy and teaching outcome expectancy simultaneously.
A detailed document review was conducted to compare the differences of the
curriculum structure and course works among these ten programs before and during
the formal study. Since the main purpose of this study was to examine perspective
teachers’ efficacy toward mathematics and science, DME and DSE programs were
reported separately for showing the desired model of program design. Also because
of the similarity of remained eight programs, their curriculum structures were
reported together, while only the DEE program was explained as an example of not
specializing in either mathematics or science. With regard to the number of general

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content knowledge courses and methods courses taken in mathematics and science,
students in DME and DSE received more preparations in content knowledge and
teaching methodology, a total of 77 or more required credits for both programs,
shown as table 3. Students in other 8 programs (departments) took only 22 or more
and 25 required credits respectively in the disciplines of mathematics and science.
Program CC (M & S)a GKC (M & S) ESFC (Me)b MC Total
DME 10 (2-3) 57 (15) 30 (9) 51 (M) 148
DSE 10 (2-3) 57 (15) 30 (9) 51 (S) 148
c
Other 8 programs 14 (3-4) 48 (10) 20 (9) 66 (EE) 148
a. “M & S” indicates common courses or general knowledge courses related to
mathematics and sciences.
b. “Me” refers to elementary mathematics and science methods courses.
c. “EE” indicates common courses or general knowledge courses related to
elementary education in DEE program, as an example.
Table 3: Curriculum Structure Comparisons (Credit Hours)
The traditional design of teacher preparation programs, which are oriented in
cultivating elementary generalists (NRC, 2001), will be inadequate for accomplishing
the requirement of having qualified teachers in every classroom and for every subject
area. As students have diverse needs and distinct characteristics, it is truly essential
that specialized teachers exist for every subject area in every school. In order to
reach the goal of enhancing prospective teachers’ sense of efficacy toward
mathematics and science, including both personal teaching efficacy and teaching
outcome expectancy, teacher preparation programs and their faculty members should
rethink the program design, the curriculum structure, the content provided, and the
pedagogy used in preparing them to teach mathematics and science. Further, even
though more preparations in these two subject areas are no guarantee of higher
quality of pre-service teachers and their better understandings of their subjects,
insufficient preparation will definitely result in inadequacy of content and
pedagogical knowledge and teaching skills in mathematics and science. This
inadequacy will surely have a great influence on the quality of future teachers and the
performance of their students (Chang, Wu, & Gentry, 2005).

CONCLUSION
According to the findings of this study, the teacher preparation program design did
play a significant role in preparing future teachers in mathematics and science for the
elementary school. Referring to how to make progress in improving the quality of
elementary mathematics and science teachers, the program designs of DME and DSE
of the participating teachers college in Taiwan demonstrated both more extensive
curriculum frameworks in preparing prospective teachers’ subject matter knowledge
and more self-confidence in delivering effective teaching in the classroom. While
Taiwan’s teacher education system is trying to pursue a more organized restructuring

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system for elementary teacher preparation in the current evolution, is it the right time
to rethink and react for the purpose of advancing a new elementary teacher education
component, especially for mathematics and science education?
Endnotes
1
Number of programs (departments) varied in every teacher college. There were 9
teachers colleges totally in Taiwan in the year of 1997.
2
Remaining 8 programs from DEE, DLE, DAE, DSS, DMU, DEC, DSP, and DPE in
the participating teachers college.
Acknowledgement One part of this research was found by the National Science Council
(NSC) of Taiwan, numbered as “NSC 93-2511-S-451-001”. An ongoing research project
will provide in-depth information qualitatively of how to improve teacher efficacy in PME
31.
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