Changing Teachers' Attitudes and Practices Through Professional Development
The sample for this analysis was comprised of teachers from schools of all grade levels
that had participated in TEAM-Math for up to three years as of Spring 2008. This sample
included 655 elementary and 178 secondary teachers from 58 schools representing all 14
school districts in the TEAM-Math partnership. In terms of years of involvement in the
program, 353 teachers were from schools in their third year of involvement, 255 from
schools in their second year, while 225 teachers were in their first year. With
respect to demographics, 749 teachers were female, while 78 were male. 556 were white, 196
were African-American, 38 chose "other" race or ethnicity, 25 were Asian American, 3 were
Native American, 2 were Hispanic, while 2 were identified as Biracial or Multiracial.
Three critical variables were included in the analysis. Participation in
TEAM-Math was measured by the number of hours each year (across the first three years of
the project) that a teacher attended summer institutes, trainings, meetings, workshops,
and other TEAM-Math activities.
Attitudes towards reform teaching practices
(ATRP) and Use of reform teaching practices in the classroom (URP) was
measured with teacher self-report survey items completed in year three of the
project. To measure ATRP, teachers indicated their beliefs about reform teaching
practices by their level of agreement with five statements such as: Students should
understand the meaning of a mathematical concept before they memorize the definitions and
procedures associated with that concept, and Teachers should allow students to
figure out their own ways of solving mathematics problems. These survey questions had
five response options for teachers to choose from which ranged from "Strongly Agree" (4)
to "Strongly Disagree" (0). These five items were summed to create a total score for
ATRP. To measure URP, teachers indicated their use of reform teaching practices by their
level of agreement with four items indicating how often students engaged in certain
instructional activities in their classroom, for example: Present how they solved a
problem to the class, and Take tests where they have to explain their
answers. These survey questions also had five response options for teachers to choose
from which ranged from "All or Almost All" (4) to "Never" (0). These four items were
likewise summed to create a total score for each teacher.
A correlational analysis
was carried out to test the relationship of Participation with ATRP and URP.
