A comparative analysis of noticing of mathematics teachers with varying teaching experience

Abstract

Teachers’ noticing refers to attending to classroom events and interpreting why those events are worth noticing. Noticing is regarded as an essential component of teaching expertise. The purpose of present study is to investigate what mathematics teachers with different years of experience notice, and differences and similarities between the teachers in terms of noticing. 15 participant mathematics teachers were purposefully selected and divided into three groups as, inexperienced, less experienced and experienced teachers, according to their teaching experience. Quantitative and qualitative tools were used to analyze the data. Chi square tests were conducted to examine whether noticing of teachers with varying teaching experience significantly differed from each other. A coding schema which assigned actor, topic, stance and specificity to a specific event was used. Results showed that there were statistically significant differences between teacher groups in terms of their noticing about the actor and topic of the noticed incident and the stance they adopted. Statistically significant differences were especially between the experienced teachers and the inexperienced teachers. Moreover, there were qualitative differences and similarities between them on what they noticed and how they analyzed the events that they noticed. Implications of the findings for teachers and teacher educators were apparent.