Interconnecting Content and Community: A Qualitative Study of Secondary Mathematics Teachers

The publication of the National Council ofTeachers of Mathematics initial Standards(1989) has acted as a catalyst to beginreforming the way mathematics is taught in theUSA. However, the literature regarding reformmovements suggests that changing oureducational systems requires overcoming manybarriers and is thus difficult to achieve.Reform in mathematics education, like reformmovements in other areas of education, has thusbeen slow to take hold. One structure that hasbeen shown to support educational reform,particularly instructional reform, has beenteacher community. This paper discusses aprofessional development intervention thatattempted to start a professional communityamong a group of secondary mathematics teachersthrough in-service work on mathematical problemsolving and technology. The results of thisstudy suggest that the use of mathematicalcontent explorations in professionaldevelopment settings provides a means to helpmathematics teachers build professionalcommunities. Together, these two components –mathematical content explorations and teachercommunity – provided these secondarymathematics teachers with a strong foundationfor engaging in the reform of their mathematicsclasses.     

Development and initial validation of a multidimensional questionnaire on the relationship to work (RWQ)

The paper presents first the theoretical foundations used to develop a pre-experimental version of a questionnaire on relationship to work, and then the four stages of its initial validation leading to an experimental version. These stages included: (1) Defining the dimensions and sub-dimensions of the relationship to work concept; (2) Operationalizing the dimensions and sub-dimensions and creating the items; (3) Verifying the face and content validity and developing the pre-experimental questionnaire; (4) Testing the pre-experimental questionnaire with 550 workers and 538 students, assessing its psychometric properties and elaborating the experimental questionnaire.