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Professional development for teaching mathematics with technology: a comparative study of facilitators’ beliefs and practices in China and Germany

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Abstract

Facilitators, i.e., individuals who lead professional development (PD) programs, play a crucial role in providing high-quality PD to teachers, which is particularly relevant in the context of teaching mathematics with technology given the ubiquitous calls to exploit the potential of digital mathematical tools (DMT). However, quantitative research investigating facilitators’ beliefs and practices remains scarce, particularly research comparing countries. In this cross-national study conducted in China and Germany, we developed an online questionnaire and surveyed n = 340 facilitators to provide a comprehensive quantitative picture of facilitators’ beliefs and practices concerning PD for teaching mathematics with DMT. The results highlight various commonalities and differences between facilitators in China and Germany. We reveal significant differences concerning cooperation among facilitators, adaptation of PD materials, how facilitators professionalise themselves, and beliefs about when and how to use DMT. Furthermore, Chinese facilitators emphasise technical competence more strongly, while German facilitators focus more on developing teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge. A critical commonality was that facilitators’ self-efficacy concerning teaching with DMT and their self-efficacy for conducting PD for teaching mathematics with DMT was low. We discuss how the results can be linked to differences in the educational and cultural context and outline possible complements and enrichments for both countries’ educational systems.

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Notes

  1. We note that these aspects of competence are not exhaustive; however, they cover important facets that have consistently been identified and described in the literature.

  2. Self-efficacy beliefs are “beliefs in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments” (Bandura, 1997, p. 3).

  3. Facilitators are referred to in the literature as leaders, PD providers, multipliers, and other terms. Facilitators are a specific and important subgroup of “Mathematics Teacher Educators”, a term that commonly refers to both individuals who educate prospective teachers and those who educate practising teachers (Karsenty et al., 2023).

  4. Culture can be defined as the “shared motives, values, beliefs, identities, and interpretations or meanings of significant events that result from common experiences of members of collectives that are transmitted across generations” (House et al. 2004, p. 15).

  5. More detailed information regarding the characteristics of facilitators can be found in the Online Resource. For the Chinese questionnaire, almost all items (except for age) were compulsory, and the questionnaire could only be submitted after answering all the questions. For the German questionnaire, facilitators could drop out at any point.

  6. For fostering teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs for teaching with DMT (PD_B6), we found a small significant difference (p = 0.034) between the East China region (12.03) and other regions of China (10.56), which was also the case for fostering teachers’ PCK (PD_B9, p = 0.050; CN-East, 12.99; CN-other, 11.50).

  7. For competence orientation (in PD_P10), we found a small significant difference (p = 0.031) between the East China region (1.84) and other regions of China (2.29), which was also the case for case relatedness (in PD_P10, p = 0.050; CN-East, 1.32; CN-other, 1.03).

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Funding

The research conducted in China was supported by three research grants: Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (award no: 22DZ2229014), East China Normal University (award no: 2019ECNU-XF2H004), Asian Centre for Mathematics Education (award no: 92900-120215-10514).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Siegen, Siegen, Germany

    Daniel Thurm

  2. East China Normal University, Shanghai, China

    Shuhui Li, Lianghuo Fan & Na Li

  3. University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany

    Bärbel Barzel

  4. University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

    Lianghuo Fan

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  1. Daniel Thurm
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  2. Shuhui Li
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  3. Bärbel Barzel
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Contributions

DT initiated the project. All authors participated in designing the study. Data analysis was conducted by NL, SL, and DT. All authors participated in writing and revising the manuscript and approved the final manuscript. LF led the data collection and SL coordinated the data analysis in China.

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Correspondence to Shuhui Li.

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Thurm, D., Li, S., Barzel, B. et al. Professional development for teaching mathematics with technology: a comparative study of facilitators’ beliefs and practices in China and Germany. Educ Stud Math 115, 247–269 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-023-10284-3

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