The Survey on Teacher’s Mathematics Teaching Belief in selected Kindergartens in Nanjing City, China

Abstract

Based upon a review of literature, anthropologists, social
psychologists, and philosophers and educationists have agreed
upon a commonly accepted definition of beliefs; “beliefs are
thought of as psychologically held understandings, premises, or
propositions about the world that are felt to be true” (Richardson,
1996, p.103). In educational settings, Haney et al. (2003) defined
beliefs as “one’s convictions, philosophy, tenets, or opinions
about teaching and learning” (p. 367). The beliefs that teachers
hold are considered to be important as teaching belief tend to
influence a teacher’s classroom practice. This study aims to
examines mathematics teaching beliefs of selected kindergartens
teachers in the Nanjing city of China with a view to
understanding what beliefs teachers hold. The data of this study
were collected through questionnaire and interviews. The
questionnaires were distributed to 300 teachers from the 14
randomly selected kindergartens in the urban Nanjing District.
The findings of this study will contribute to widening the pool of
knowledge about Chinese teachers’ educational beliefs and in
particular their beliefs with respect to students’ learning
mathematics in preschool.