An Analysis of Current and Former Mathematics and Science Teacher Education Program Participants' Perceptions for Quality Assurance

Abstract

State curriculum and professional standards characterize the level of proficiency preservice teachers must attain to be prepared to teach in Texas classrooms. Teacher education programs are being scrutinized for their ability to help pre-service teachers reach a level of proficiency commensurate with these state standards. This dissertation presents an understanding of a teacher education program’s quality via analysis of its current student teacher and former student perceptions.

There are two participant groups in this study - current student teachers (n=11) and former students (n=78) from one program called, aggieTEACH, a traditional baccalaureate secondary mathematics and science teacher education program. Of the current student teachers and former students participating in this study, 77.5% (n = 69) were female, 21.3% (n = 19) were male and 1.1% (n = 1) did not disclose their gender; additionally, 80.9% (n =72) identify as white or Caucasian, 9% (n = 8) identify as Hispanic, 7.8% (n = 7) identifying as African American, Asian, or other, and 2.2% (n = 2) decided not to disclose their race.

This mixed methods study reveals participant’s agreement and confidence levels in mentoring, confidence, TEP quality, and program characteristics of aggieTEACH. The researcher used principal components analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and content analysis to review secondary data from administered web-based surveys. The surveys have Likert-scaled, single-response items and open-ended response items. Specific survey items were identified per categories called (a) mentoring, (b) confidence, (c) TEP quality, and (d) program characteristics. The mentoring scale yielded an alpha of .903. The confidence subscale yielded an alpha .951. The quality items yielded an alpha .881 and the characteristics items yielded an alpha of .919. Significant differences occurred between current student teacher and former student participants’ agreement and confidence levels about the teacher education program characteristics and experiences. Current student teachers scored higher on average and have less variability to former students on (a) mentoring, (b) confidence, (c) TEP quality, and (d) program characteristics scales. Lastly, both current student teachers and former students identified student teaching and field observations as the most helpful or relevant component of their teacher education program experiences.