Learning Evaluation in Mathematics Teaching Degree and the Possible Implications for Teacher Training

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the perceptions of undergraduates in Mathematics Teaching on the evaluation practices of their teachers of specific content subjects and the possible implications of this practice in their training as teachers. It is a qualitative research, expositive and explicative, developed in a Mathematics Teaching degree in a Brazilian Federal University. We used random non-probabilistic sample to select the course and the students. To produce the data, we used: documental analysis, class observation, interviews, group talks, and social networks – Facebook and WhatsApp groups, followed by content analysis. The main intervening which emerged from the data were indications of possible dispositions composing the habitus of mathematics teachers. From these dispositions, undergraduates indicated, directly and indirectly, the legitimizing role of the evaluation practices in the subjects of mathematics content as a way of symbolic violence, when mentioning the tension between the bachelor’s and the teaching degrees, and criticizing or defending the expositive classes with demonstrations, the rigor of classificatory tests, and the relationship teacher-student with little dialogue. The analysis shows that the students do not clearly see the implications of these evaluation practices on their training as teachers. In this context, they have shown a propensity to incorporate the habitus of the mathematics teacher, becoming possible reproducers of a pedagogical practice focused on transmission and traditional evaluation in their future.