Abstract
This study uses a construct of Teacher Capacity to examine how Australian and Chinese teachers understand and give effect to new curriculum content in “Statistics and Probability” for the upper primary and junior secondary years. The study involved 82 teachers—41 in each country. Their responses to a questionnaire were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively in terms of four criteria which form the basis of our construct of teacher capacity: Knowledge of Mathematics, Interpretation of the Intentions of the Official Mathematics Curriculum, Understanding of Students’ Thinking and Design of Teaching. These analyses gave rise to three classifications of teacher capacity: High, Medium and Low Capacity. Australian teachers performed slightly better on all four criteria than Chinese teachers. Among the four criteria, Design of Teaching appears to be the critical dimension for the implementation of curriculum reform.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority. (2010). The Australian curriculum: Mathematics. Sydney: Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority.
Ball, D., Thames, M., & Phelps, G. (2008). Content knowledge for teaching: What makes it special? Journal of Teacher Education, 59, 389–407.
Datnow, A., & Castellano, M. (2001). Teachers’ responses to success for all: How beliefs, experiences and adaptations shape curriculum. American Educational Research Journal, 37, 775–800.
Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. (2006). Mathematics developmental continuum. Melbourne: Department of Education and Early Childhood Development.
Floden, R., Goertz, M., & O’Day, J. (1995). Capacity building in systemic reform. Phi Delta Kappan, 77(1), 19–21.
Fullan, M. (2010). All systems go: The change imperative for whole system reform. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Garfield, J. B., & Ben-Zvi, D. (2008). Developing students’ statistical reasoning. Milton Keynes, England: Springer.
Garfield, J., & Gal, I. (1999). Assessment and statistics education: Current challenges and directions. International Statistical Review, 67, 1–12.
McDiarmid, B. (2006). Rethinking teacher capacity. http://scimath.unl.edu/MIM/rew2006/Powerpoints/REW06McDiarmid.ppt.
Meletiou, M., & Lee, C. (2002). Teaching students the stochastic nature of statistical concepts in an introductory statistics course. Statistical Education Research Journal, 1(2), 22–37.
Ministry of Education of PRC. (2011). Mathematics curriculum standards for compulsory education (2011 version). Beijing: Beijing Normal University Press.
Petrou, M., & Goulding, M. (2011). Conceptualising teachers’ mathematical knowledge in teaching. In T. Rowland & K. Ruthven (Eds.), Mathematical knowledge in teaching (pp. 9–25). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.
Ruthven, K. (2011). Conceptualising mathematical knowledge in teaching. In T. Rowland & K. Ruthven (Eds.), Mathematical knowledge in teaching (pp. 83–98). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.
Shaughnessy, J. M., Canada, D., & Ciancetta, M. (2004). Types of student reasoning on sampling tasks. In B. Philips (Ed.), Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Teaching Statistics: Developing a Statistically Literate Society. Voorburg, The Netherlands: International Statistical Institute.
Shulman, L. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15(2), 4–14.
Shulman, L. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57, 1–22.
Spillane, J. (1999). External reform initiatives and teachers’ efforts to reconstruct their practice: The mediating role of teachers’ zones of enactment. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 31, 143–175.
Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority. (2008). Victorian essential learning standards (Mathematics). Melbourne: Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Zhang, Q., Stephens, M. (2016). Teacher Capacity as a Key Element of National Curriculum Reform in Statistical Thinking: A Comparative Study Between Australia and China. In: Ben-Zvi, D., Makar, K. (eds) The Teaching and Learning of Statistics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23470-0_36
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23470-0_36
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-23469-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-23470-0
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)