Knowing and Teaching Fractions: A
Cross-Cultural Study of American and Chinese Mathematics
Teachers
Jenny Zheng Zhou, Department of
Psychology, St. John’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Abstract
Guided by Shulman’s tripartate model of teacher
expertise—subject matter knowledge (SMK), pedagogical content
knowledge (PCK), and general pedagogical knowledge (GPK)—the
present study examined 160 U. S. and Chinese 3rd grade mathematics
teachers’ expertise in teaching fractions. Results show that U.S.
teachers lag significantly behind Chinese teachers in SMK
(concepts, computations, and word problems) and in PCK (e.g., such
as identifying important points of teaching the fraction concepts
and how to ensure students’ understanding). However, Chinese
teachers performed poorly in comparison to their U. S. counterparts
on tasks that measure GPK (e.g., psychological and educational
theories and applications). The implications of this study are
discussed in terms of practical ideas for teacher training in U.S.
and China.