Date of Graduation
1998
Document Type
Dissertation/Thesis
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between gender of the teacher, faculty development, and class size of college mathematics teachers. The population for this study were 272 randomly selected institutions nationwide granting degrees in mathematics. A survey packet with a cover letter, a copy of the Teacher Efficacy Scale (Gibson & Dembo, 1984), and a questionnaire was mailed to the mathematics departments at each of the selected institutions. The recipient of the mailing was asked to either complete the enclosed instruments or forward the packet to a fellow full-time mathematics teacher. The return rate was 46%. Concerns expressed by approximately 20% of the respondents suggest that the Teacher Efficacy Scale (Gibson & Dembo, 1984) is not an appropriate instrument to measure efficacy levels of higher education teachers. The comments addressed the lack of relevancy to college students, the ambiguity of some of the questions, and the lack of relevancy to college or university teaching. The data were analyzed using the Statistical Analysis Systems. To answer the six research questions, Analyses of Variance, frequency distributions, and Duncan's Multiple Range tests were used. An alpha level of .05 was used to determine significance. Female college mathematics teachers had slightly higher efficacy measures than the males in the study, though the difference was not significant. No significant differences were found between class size or faculty development and sense of teaching efficacy or sense of personal teaching efficacy. Teachers with high or mid-low levels of teaching efficacy made significantly more presentations than teachers with low or mid-high levels of teaching efficacy. Respondents with high teaching efficacy levels made almost three times as many presentations as those with low teaching efficacy. Teachers with low teaching efficacy and low personal teaching efficacy made twice as many presentations as those with high efficacy levels. Female mathematics teachers made significantly more presentations at faculty development activities than their male colleagues. College mathematics teachers with low levels of personal teaching assigned significantly higher ratings to faculty development activities than did teachers with mid-low levels of personal teaching efficacy.
Recommended Citation
Cipoletti, Beth, "The relationship between gender, faculty development, and class size and sense of efficacy of college mathematics teachers." (1998). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 8638.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/8638