3375

K. G. Garegae

philosophy of mathematics education

2016

30

teacher beliefs , mathematics teaching , nature of mathematics

This paper discuses teachers’ beliefs about the nature of mathematics, its teaching and learning. A case study design was employed, in which three junior secondary school mathematics teachers in Botswana participated in a large study for a period of three months. Data reported in this paper was gathered through interviews, personal essays and classroom observations. Using Ernest’s (1991) categories of personal beliefs, two of the participants (Kgosing and Letsomane) were identified as Platonists, while the other participant (Thamo) was categorized as an Instrumentalist. Further observation highlighted the existence of inconsistencies among data sets for each of the three participants. In most cases, inconsistencies were observed between interviews and observation data. The findings have implications for the methodology used in the study of teacher beliefs.