Relationship between Chinese mathematics teachers' affective-motivational characteristics and their professional noticing

Abstract

Mathematics teacher professional noticing refers to their ability to attend to, interpret, and make decisions to respond to students’ mathematical thinking. These skills are crucial for effective mathematics teaching as they enable teachers to identify salient information in complex classroom interactions and make strategic decisions to support student learning. However, few studies have investigated how teachers’ affective-motivational characteristics, such as beliefs, teaching efficacy, and mathematics anxiety, are related to their levels of professional noticing. Moreover, empirical studies that compare different artifacts as tools for eliciting professional noticing is still limited. This study addresses these gaps by examining the relationship between primary mathematics teachers’ affective motivational-characteristics and professional noticing in mainland China. It also compares the effectiveness of two types of artifacts in eliciting professional noticing: Student Solution Analysis Task and Animation-based Task. This study used a mixed methods design to explore the relationship. In the first stage, 281 primary mathematics teachers in China completed an online questionnaire and a Student Solution Analysis Task. The relations between affective-motivational characteristics and professional noticing were examined by correlation and regression. In the second stage, 31 teachers participated in an interview that involved an Animation-based Task. The teachers were asked about their views on the relationship and impact of their affective-motivational characteristics on their noticing skills, as well as their experiences with using the two classroom artifacts. The findings revealed that teachers’ beliefs about mathematics teaching and learning, teaching efficacy, and mathematics anxiety were significantly correlated to professional noticing. Among these factors, teachers’ beliefs emerged as a significant positive predictor of their noticing skills. The findings based on Student Solution Analysis Task indicated that teachers with constructivist-oriented beliefs, high teaching efficacy, and low anxiety tended to notice more aspects of students’ mathematical thinking. Additionally, teachers reported how affective-motivational characteristics impacted their professional noticing, based on the experience of completing the two tasks, such as via affecting their mathematical and educational knowledge, teaching skills, identity, mindsets, attitudes, emotional and cognitive reactions to challenges. Qualitative analysis of teachers’ views on the affordances of the two classroom artifacts revealed several findings. First, the teachers believed that animations provided a holistic picture of students’ mathematical thinking, while students’ written solutions provided clear and concise evidence of their equations. They also commented that animations offer them engaging experiences, while students’ written solutions allowed them more time and flexibility for observation. In summary, the findings suggest that teachers’ affective-motivational characteristics play a significant role in teacher professional noticing. Teachers’ constructivist-oriented beliefs have a strong and positive impact on their noticing skills and thus should be considered and addressed in teacher education and professional development. Moreover, as each type of artifact has its strengths and weaknesses in eliciting teacher professional noticing, researchers and educators should consider these differences in meaningful ways when they design and implement tasks to elicit and determine teacher professional noticing. Thus, this study enhances the understanding of mathematics teachers’ affective-motivations and their relationship with professional noticing, offering implications for teacher education in Chinese educational contexts.