Exploring Factors Related to Intended Teaching Moves within Pre-Service Teachers

The purpose of this correlational study was to explore the relationships between various factors and the number of intended teaching moves that preservice teachers said they would make with children when engaging with whole number and rational number computation work samples. We explored the relationship between the number of intended teaching moves and factors of mathematical knowledge for teaching, mathematics anxiety, pedagogical beliefs, and executive function within a sample of 40 preservice teachers from varying stages of a teacher preparation program. The results of the study show strong relationships between the number of intended teaching moves and several factors, including facts-first beliefs (e.g. rho(38) = -.502, p < 0.01 for the rational number work samples), mathematical knowledge for teaching (e.g. rho(38) = .409, p < 0.01 for the relationship between the whole number LMT and the rational number samples), mathematics anxiety, and some measures of executive function. Interestingly, some factors were significantly related to the rational number samples but not the whole number samples (e.g. emotionality: rho(38) = -.366, p < 0.05, worry: rho(38) = -.320, p < 0.05, and fixed instructional plan beliefs: rho(38) = -.325, p < 0.05). Implications for mathematics teacher educators are discussed alongside directions for future research.