A comparison of Christian school and public school geometry teachers concerning the beliefs and practices of teaching proofs

Abstract

Theorists contend that mathematics teachers' beliefs influence their practices; consequently, differing Christian and public school philosophies should lead to different practices. However, some researchers have questioned if Christian education is "truly distinct" from public education. Other researchers have noted that this question is still open and that the philosophical differences between Christian and public school teachers might not be translating into differences in practices. A causal-comparative study was conducted between Christian and public school geometry teachers to investigate these differences. This study took place in Florida and Georgia using an instrument designed to measure four different aspects of teaching geometry proofs. An overall difference between the public school teachers (n_p = 32) and Christian school teachers (n_c = 31) was evaluated by using a multivariate analysis of variance and was found to be statistically insignificant, Wilk's Λ = .926, F(4, 57) = 1.137, p = .348.