From teacher education to practice: Development of early childhood teachers‘ knowledge and beliefs in mathematics

Abstract

This longitudinal study examined the development of 129 German early childhood teachers’ knowledge and epistemic beliefs in mathematics from teacher education to practice. The test and questionnaire data have been analyzed with auto-regressive models with cross-lagged effects and mean differences to investigate change over time. The study reveals that knowledge increases over time, while most of the beliefs do not change. Furthermore, the correlational pattern between all constructs seems to be stable after having moved from teacher education to practice. Thus, findings are not in line with the theoretical assumption of a greater differentiation of teachers’ competence through practical experience.