Effects of future mathematics teachers’ affective, cognitive and socio-demographic characteristics on their knowledge at the end of the teacher education in Germany and Taiwan

Periodical
International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education
Volume
11
Year
2013
Issue number
4
Page range
895–921
Relates to study/studies
TEDS-M 2008

Effects of future mathematics teachers’ affective, cognitive and socio-demographic characteristics on their knowledge at the end of the teacher education in Germany and Taiwan

Abstract

How individual characteristics affect the acquisition of knowledge in teacher education has been widely unexplored thus far. The “Teacher Education and Development Study—Learning to Teach Mathematics (TEDS-M)” provides a database for examining this research question across countries. Based on the Taiwanese and German sample of TEDS-M, the relationship between future lower secondary mathematics teachers’ knowledge and their affective, cognitive and socio-demographic characteristics was examined using multilevel modelling whilst controlling for the teachers’ opportunities to learn. The results reveal that in Germany, teacher knowledge is more strongly affected by future teachers’ individual characteristics than teacher knowledge in Taiwan. These results are interpreted against the background of cultural differences between “the West” and “the East” or “individualism” and “collectivism”, respectively.