A comparative study of Danish and Chinese pre-service high school teachers' knowledge of probability and statistics

Speaker:

Yueting Liang, IND

External Advisor: 

Associate Professor Ricardo Karam

Abstract:

This study investigates the knowledge level of Danish and Chinese pre-service high school mathematics teachers in the context of globalized data literacy education. Grounded in the Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics (TEDS-M) framework and the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic (ATD), the research adopts a mixed-methods approach. The quantitative component employs TEDS-inspired standardized tests to measure Mathematical Content Knowledge (MCK) and Mathematical Pedagogical Content Knowledge (MPCK), involving 200–300 pre-service teachers from East China Normal University, Shanghai Normal University (China), and the University of Copenhagen and Aarhus University (Denmark). The qualitative component integrates ATD’s institutional hierarchy analysis, utilizing classroom observations and semi-structured interviews to explore systemic influences (e.g., curricular norms, pedagogical traditions) on teacher knowledge construction. The research questions focus on six dimensions: differences in knowledge level, didactic beliefs, institutional impacts, classroom application, professional development recommendations, and international implications. This study aims to reveal the characteristics differences in teacher knowledge structure and their institutional determinants in the two countries, providing methodology and empirical references for cross-national mathematics teacher education research.