Pre-service teachers and numeracy readiness

Although, in the Australian context, teachers are urged to address cross-curricular numeracy demands, whether pre-service teachers recognise and are prepared for this responsibility is rarely addressed. In this paper we report data from a pilot study in which we explored the numeracy capabilities of 151 pre-service teachers, their expectations of the numeracy demands they will face, and possible differences in the responses of primary and secondary pre-service teachers. Most in the sample considered themselves to be at least average at mathematics and were able to solve numeracy items considered suitable for 15 year-olds. However, more than half were uncertain, or did not believe, that there are mathematical demands on teachers in schools apart from what they teach their students.