What do we know about primary teachers’ mathematical content knowledge in South Africa? An analysis of SACMEQ 2007

Type Journal Article - International Journal of Educational Development
Title What do we know about primary teachers’ mathematical content knowledge in South Africa? An analysis of SACMEQ 2007
Author(s)
Volume 41
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 2015
Page numbers 121-130
URL http://mobile.wiredspace.wits.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10539/17772/Venkat, H., & Spaull, N. (2015).​What do we know about primary teachers’.pdf?sequence=1
Abstract
There is consensus in the international mathematics teacher education literature that teachers should, at
the most basic level, have mastery of the content knowledge they are required to teach. In this paper we
test this assumption empirically by analyzing the South African SACMEQ 2007 mathematics teacher test
data which tested 401 grade 6 mathematics teachers from a nationally representative sample of primary
schools. With items matched to curriculum grade bands, findings indicate that 79% of grade 6
mathematics teachers showed content knowledge levels below the grade 6/7 band, and that the few
teachers with higher-level content knowledge are highly inequitably distributed

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