Improving the Judgment of Task Difficulties: Prospective Teachers' Diagnostic Competence in the Area of Functions and Graphs

Autor/inn/en	Ostermann, Andreas; Leuders, Timo; Nückles, Matthias
Titel	Improving the Judgment of Task Difficulties: Prospective Teachers' Diagnostic Competence in the Area of Functions and Graphs
Quelle	In: Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 21 (2018) 6, S.579-605 (27 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1386-4416
DOI	10.1007/s10857-017-9369-z
Schlagwörter	Difficulty Level; Preservice Teachers; Mathematics; Graphs; Knowledge Level; Pedagogical Content Knowledge; Student Attitudes; Thinking Skills; Teacher Student Relationship; Computation; Teaching Methods + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Schwierigkeitsgrad; Mathematik; Grafische Darstellung; Wissensbasis; Pädagogische Kompetenz; Schülerverhalten; Denkfähigkeit; Teacher student relationships; Lehrer-Schüler-Beziehung; Teaching method; Lehrmethode; Unterrichtsmethode
Abstract	To teach adaptively, teachers should be able to take the students' level of knowledge into account. Therefore, a key component of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is the ability to assume the students' perspectives. However, due to the so-called expert blind spot, teachers tend to misestimate their students' knowledge, such as when estimating the difficulty of a given task. This empirically well-documented estimation bias is predicted by Nickerson's anchoring and adjustment model, which generally explains how people take on other people's perspectives. In this article, we present an intervention study that aims to improve the accuracy of prospective teachers' judgments of task difficulty in the area of functional thinking. Two types of treatments are derived from Nickerson's model. In the first condition (PCK group), participants acquire knowledge about task characteristics and students' misconceptions. The second condition (sensitizing group) serves to control the idea that potential improvements in the PCK group are not merely based on a pure sensitization of the expert's estimation bias. Accordingly, these participants are only informed about the general tendency of overestimating task difficulties. The results showed that the PCK group improved both in terms of the accuracy of the estimated solution rates and the accuracy of rank order, whereas the sensitizing group only improved in regard to the former. Thus, the study shows that prospective teachers' diagnostic judgments can be improved by teaching them relevant PCK in a short amount of time. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01