Structure and Typical Profiles of Elementary Teacher Students’ View of Mathematics

The elementary school teachers' view of mathematics is important because it will influence the way they will teach mathematics. Based on a survey study in three Finnish universities we explored the structure of student teachers view of mathematics and also the different belief profiles that they had. The core of student teachers' view consisted of three correlated beliefs: belief of one's own talent, belief of the difficulty of mathematics, and one's liking of mathematics. Five other beliefs were also identified. Gender, grade, and mathematics course selection at high school each contributed to the variation in these factors. A cluster analysis produced three main types of belief profiles: positive, neutral, and negative view. Each of these was further divided into two subclasses.