Preservice Teachers’ Beliefs about Mathematics Education: Implications for Future Classroom Instruction

Abstract

This research paper examines preservice mathematics teachers’ beliefs about mathematics education. It is argued that teachers’ beliefs have implications for classroom instruction. To address this problem, a descriptive method of research was employed, administering the developed questionnaire to the 69 randomly selected preservice mathematics teachers. Statistical tools such as mean and standard deviation were utilized to answer the problems formulated in this study. Findings show that preservice mathematics teachers strongly agree in almost all of the issues concerning beliefs about mathematics education. But, they do not believe that a teacher's role in the classroom is to give definitions, formulas, and rules in doing mathematics. They also disagree that a single assessment can determine students' performance.