An examination of the professional development needs of out-of-field mathematics teachers

This paper presents an empirical study examining the professional development needs of out-of-field mathematics teachers in the Irish context (n = 202). An online questionnaire gathered data on cohort demographics and confidence with regard to teaching mathematics. A paper-and-pencil test evaluated teachers’ cognitive and conceptual proficiency with curriculum-aligned mathematical content. Low achievement levels and high occurrence of conceptual errors indicate inadequate subject content knowledge and difficulties with the content of the curriculum. Additionally, these teachers described themselves as either somewhat or very confident in teaching all content. The discrepancies which exist between confidence levels and content proficiency highlight the importance of designing appropriate professional development programs that are situated and practice based.