Research on the Relationship Between Teachers’ Mathematics/Science Content Knowledge and Their Instructional Practice and Students’ Achievement
Professional learning opportunities for teachers of mathematics and science have increasingly focused on deepening teachers’ content knowledge. Teachers’ mathematics/science content knowledge makes a difference in their professional practice and their students’ achievement, according to a number of research studies.
Findings from Research
Teachers’ mathematics/science content knowledge influences their professional practice.
Knowledge of mathematics/science had a bearing on teachers’ evaluation of instructional materials. More knowledgeable teachers were more adept at identifying a coherent mathematics/science storyline in materials, while less knowledgeable teachers struggled to do so.
Content knowledge also had an impact on mathematics teachers’ instructional decisions when using materials. When teachers with limited content knowledge departed from their instructional materials, they augmented them with mathematical representations of their own choosing, which tended to obscure or distort the concepts students were expected to learn. In addition, teachers with less mathematics knowledge tended to focus on algorithms rather than on the underlying mathematics concepts. In contrast, teachers who understood multiple representations of mathematics concepts were able to use these representations to further students’ understanding. More knowledgeable teachers tended to present problems in contexts that were familiar to the students and to link problems to what students already learned. They were also more likely to approach students’ questions mathematically and to solve problems collaboratively with students, compared to less knowledgeable teachers who tended to look up correct answers in response to students’ questions.
Similarly, in science, teachers with deeper content knowledge were more likely than those with weaker knowledge to pose questions, suggest alternative explanations, and propose additional inquiries for students. When planning lessons on familiar content, science teachers had a sense of how to build a storyline by presenting concepts in a logical sequence. In areas in which they were unfamiliar with the content, they were aware of the need for appropriate sequencing, but were unable to identify the key concepts. (View citations. [PDF 34k])
Teacher’s mathematics content knowledge is related to their students’ learning.
A small number of studies have examined the relationship between teacher content knowledge and student outcomes in mathematics or science, and the results present a mixed picture. From four studies in mathematics, a total of six relationships between teachers’ content knowledge and student learning were examined. In four instances, a positive relationship was found. For two cohorts of elementary grades students’ growth over a three year period, and for grade 3 students’ learning of advanced concepts, teacher content knowledge was a positive predictor. Similarly, in an evaluation of a Math Science Partnership program, teachers’ mathematics content knowledge was positively related to their grade 3 through 8 students’ achievement. Finally, in a study of first year teachers of mathematics in grades 4 through 8, teachers’ content knowledge was found to be positively related to their students’ achievement. For only one relationship that was examined in these studies, grade 3 students’ learning of basic concepts, no relationship with teachers’ content knowledge was found.
In three studies of science education, a total of five relationships between teacher content knowledge and student learning were examined. In three instances, a relationship was documented between teachers’ science content knowledge and students’ knowledge, but in two instances no relationship was detected.
One study documented correspondence among teachers’ incorrect knowledge, and their grade 8 students’ development of incorrect understandings about heat energy and temperature. Students’ development of correct understandings was not found to be related to teachers’ content knowledge, but was positively, although weakly, related to teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge about that topic. A study of grade 10 teachers and students found that teachers and their students shared similar conceptions of the nature of science, whether correct or incorrect. However, in another study, high school biology teachers’ knowledge of the nature of science was not found to be related to their students’ learning about the nature of science. (View citations. [PDF 34k])