Assessment of Mathematical Competencies and Epistemic Cognition of Preservice Teachers

Assessment in higher education requires multifaceted instruments to capture competence structures and development. The construction of a competence model of preservice mathematics teachers' mathematical abilities and epistemic beliefs allows for comparing different groups at different stages of their studies. We investigated 1st and 4th semester students with respect to their epistemic beliefs on the certainty of mathematical knowledge (assessed by both denotative and connotative judgments) and their mathematical abilities (defined as critical thinking with respect to mathematical problem situations). We show that students' beliefs change during the first four semesters, and that the level of critical thinking does not depend on belief orientation but goes along with the level of sophistication of the epistemic judgments uttered by the students.