Pre-Service Teacher Responses to Technology-Specific Items from the Self-Efficacy to Teach Statistics Instrument

Abstract

Discussions around teacher preparation and knowledge for teaching statistics often include technological pedagogical statistical knowledge (TPSK), the “intersection of statistics, pedagogy and technology” (Lesser & Groth, 2009). This concept is embedded throughout the American Statistical Association’s Statistical Education for Teachers Report, which calls for the effective use of technology for both developing concepts and performing statistical analyses. The High School version of the Self-Efficacy to Teach Statistics (SETS-HS) instrument (Harrell-Williams, Sorto, Pierce, Lesser, & Murphy, 2014) contains 44 Likert-scale items which ask teachers to rate their self-confidence to teach specific statistics concepts, based on the Pre-K-12 GAISE report (Franklin et al., 2007) and the data analysis strands of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics for High School. There are three items on the SETS-HS Level C subscale that specifically mention the use of technology in teaching specific statistical topics. A convenience sample of n = 48 pre-service high school teachers completed the Likert-scale questions and a set of open-ended questions that asked them to identify the topic they are least confident and most confident about teaching for each subscale of the SETS-HS instrument and explain their reasoning for these rating. This poster seeks to answer the following questions: How do pre-service teachers rate the technology items as compared to other Level C subscale items in terms of their self-reported efficacy levels? How frequently are these 3 items mentioned as "easiest" or "hardest" in the open-ended questions embedded in the HS SETS instrument? Were the reasons given when they were mentioned in the open-ended questions related to the use of technology? Item analysis results show that the technology items were not among the most difficult items in the Level C subscale. However, in their open-ended responses some pre-service teachers communicated that their preparation experiences did not provide them with enough interaction with technology to make them feel efficacious about teaching statistics with technology. These results could be used to start a conversation about the need to improve pre-service teacher preparation with regards to the implementation of technology in teaching K-12 statistics, as noted in the SET Report.

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