See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/225702081

Using narrative inquiry for investigating the becoming of a mathematics

teacher

Article  in  ZDM: the international journal on mathematics education · April 2007

DOI: 10.1007/s11858-007-0023-6

CITATIONS READS

81 1,822

1 author:

Raimo Kaasila
University of Oulu
94 PUBLICATIONS   988 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

PROVIDENT View project

MBB in higher education View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Raimo Kaasila on 03 November 2014.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Raimo Kaasila
USING NARRATIVE INQUIRY FOR INVESTIGATING THE
BECOMING OF A MATHEMATICS TEACHER
Ph.D., University of Lapland
Raimo.Kaasila@ulapland.fi; tel: +358-16-3412407
Abstract: This article presents narrative inquiry as a method for research in mathematics
education, in particular the study of how pre-service teachers’ views of mathematics develop
during elementary teacher education. I describe two different, complementary approaches to
applying narrative analysis, one focusing on the content of a narrative, the other focusing on
the form. The examples discussed are taken from interviews with and teaching portfolios
compiled by four pre-service teachers. In analysing the content of the students’ narratives, I
use emplotment to construct a retrospective explanation of how one pre-service teacher’s own
experiences at school were reflected in the development of her mathematical identity. In
analysing the form of the narratives, I also look at how the students told their stories, using
linguistic features, for example, to identify core events in the accounts. This particular focus
seems to be promising in locating turning points in the trainees’ views of mathematics.

1. Introduction

This article presents narrative inquiry as a method for research in mathematics education. The
particular focus is on how we can apply a narrative approach when studying the development
of pre-service teachers’ beliefs of and emotions towards mathematics. Why are narratives so
important? The answer is simple: we live in a world of narratives. The narrative turn has
entered social sciences (see Bruner 1986, Mishler 1986, Polkinghorne 1995, Clandinin &
Connelly 2000) and sociolinguistics (Labov 1972; Linde 1993). Bruner’s dichotomy of
different ways of thinking and knowing serves as an important starting point for
understanding the use of narrative inquiry. According to Bruner, people organise and manage
their knowledge of the world in two broad ways: paradigmatic (logical-scientific) and
narrative modes of thought. The first seems appropriate for treating physical ’things’, the
second for treating people and their lives. The aim of narrative knowing is to understand
actual human conduct (Bruner 1986).

In my view, the potential of case studies can be enhanced by applying the narrative approach
to data analysis. In as much as we understand our world narratively, it makes sense to study it
narratively. Educational studies are a form of experience, and narrative is a very suitable way
for representing and understanding that experience. (Clandinin & Connelly 2000) Narrative
functions as a kind of metaphor for human life: people tell a story in which they and others
are characters, who, in turn, figure in the stories of others (Connelly & Clandinin 1990). The
current enthusiasm for narrative research reflects a particular cultural and social context
(Smeyers & Verhesschen 2001). A narrative approach opens up the forms of telling about
experience, not simply the content to which the language of the narrative refers: we can ask
why the story was told in the way it was (Riessman 1993).
Narratives have considerable significance in teacher education. According to Heikkinen et al.
(2004), a narrative view of teacher education can be seen as an emphasis on the personal
process of becoming a teacher and construing one’s professional identity; an affective and
emotional element is essential to these processes. They call this view the affective-personal
dimension of narrative teacher education. A number of studies have applied a narrative
approach in the field of mathematics education: for example, in Seah (2002) the main focus
was on the content of two in-service teachers’ narrative and in Smith (2003) it was on
identifying and naming the personal theories used by one pre-service teacher. Gellert (2000)
has also applied narrative inquiry by analysing metaphors in pre-service teachers’ talk. In
addition, Hannula (2003) has applied fiction writing techniques to generate narratives.
The concept of a narrative has been defined in many ways in the literature. In this article, I
apply the definition used by Denzin (1989, 37): a narrative is a story that tells a sequence of
events that are significant for the narrator and his or her audience. A narrative has an internal
logic that makes sense to the narrator. A narrative has a plot, a beginning, a middle, and an
end. I will emphasise two key concepts in Denzin’s definition: plot and audience. Like
Ricoeur (1983, ix), I take the view that the plot brings together goals, causes and chance
within the temporal unity of a whole action. I see the word ‘audience’ in Denzin’s definition
as implicitly referring to a rhetorical dimension: when we are telling a narrative (or
narratives), we often take our audience into consideration and adapt what we say and how we
say it accordingly.

In keeping with a narrative approach, I am interested here not only in pre-service teachers’
views of mathematics as such, but also in the ways in which they tell about them. On the one
hand, I focus on the content of the narratives; that is, I am interested in the themes (e.g.,
characteristics of a good mathematics teacher, factors easing mathematics anxiety or
facilitating a change of beliefs) which the protagonist has invoked in his or her story. On the
other hand, I am interested in the forms, i.e., the different ways in which the protagonist
relates content, for example, changes that take place in his or her mathematical identity.
Analytically, the form and content of a narrative can be distinguished. It is worthwhile to
analyse both aspects, and a synthesis of the two can provide interesting results (Lieblich et al.
1998).
2. Narrative (mathematical) identity

Narratives have considerable importance for our identities. We create a narrative identity by
telling stories about our lives. Bruner (1991) crystallises this by saying that our personal
narratives are our identities. According to Ricoeur's (1992) hermeneutic theory of narrative
identity, people often develop their sense of identity by seeing themselves as protagonists in
different stories. Narrating is much more than describing events or actions; it also means
relating events and actions, organising them into sequences or plots, and then attaching them
to a character. The identity of the character is the identity of the story, not the other way
around.

Narrative identity is a context-bound concept: we can have many narrative identities, each of
which is connected to different contexts or social relationships. The narrator’s relationship to
the audience often guides what we tell and how we tell it: we select certain events and aspects
of our lives and connect them to others. For example, teacher trainees’ narrative identities can
differ depending on whether they are telling stories to their professor or their friends.
Moreover, we often do not want to relate events that give a negative picture of ourselves. This
rhetorical dimension has great significance when people construct their identities.
During teacher education it is important to listen to the voices of pre-service teachers talking
about themselves as future mathematics teachers. Bikner-Ashbahs (2003) defines
mathematical identity as a construct that describes the relationship of a person to
mathematics. I consider a person’s mathematical identity (or narrative mathematical identity)
to be part of his or her narrative identity. One’s mathematical identity is manifested when
telling stories about one’s relationship to mathematics, its learning and teaching. This means
that a person’s mathematical identity is also context bound and always under construction.

A person’s mathematical identity has a strong social dimension. According to Op ’t Eynde

(2004), students’ learning in the mathematics education community (e.g., a school class) is
characterised by an actualisation of their identity through their interactions with the teacher,
the books, and their peers. While these interactions are largely determined by the social
context they are situated in, students also bring with them the experiences of numerous other
practices in other communities in which they have participated in (Op ’t Eynde, 2004).

Pre-service teachers’ view of mathematics is an important part of their mathematical identity,

consisting of knowledge, beliefs, conceptions, attitudes and emotions. Here I distinguish three
components in students’ views of mathematics: 1) their view of themselves as learners and
teachers of mathematics, 2) their view of mathematics and its teaching and learning
(Pehkonen & Pietilä, 2003), and 3) their view of the social context of learning and teaching
mathematics, i.e., the classroom context (Op ’t Eynde et al. 2002). One essential aspect of the
first component is self-confidence, which has a central role in the formation of a student’s
view of mathematics.

3. Different approaches to narrative analysis

3.1 The use of open-ended questions in narrative interviews

The narrative interview differs noticeably from the structured interview, which has a detailed
series of questions. In the traditional semi-structured approach to interviewing, there is
usually not enough scope for recounting narratives (Mishler 1986) and it does not sufficiently
take into account that the interview narration itself is a social construction. Like Gellert, I
think that the interviewer tries to stimulate the interviewee to put into words what she or he
thinks or feels about mathematics. Interviewees organise their narrations in keeping with
social conventions of how language is used in interview situations. However, in this act, they
also take into account their own goals within the interview situation (Gellert 2001).
The form of the narrative, unstructured interview is more open than that of a semi-structured
one. The goal of the narrative interview is to get the interviewee to tell stories about things
that are important to him or her. Riessman (1993) has identified some open questions that
usually elicit narratives: the open-ended prompt “tell me …” makes it possible for
interviewees to tell about things and events which are meaningful to them and often also to
produce detailed narratives.

3.2 Various approaches to conducting narrative analysis

The literature presents various approaches to conducting narrative analysis (see, e.g., Labov
1972; Riessman 1993; Polkinghorne 1995; Lieblich et al. 1998). One can focus on content,
form or both aspects; in (traditional) case studies the focus is usually on the content of the
data, and the form is ignored.

Lieblich et al. (1998) distinguish the following main dimensions in analysis: holistic versus
categorical and content versus form. In the holistic approach, the narrative – often a biography
- is analysed as a whole, and any one part of the text is interpreted in the context of the other
parts. The categorical approach is useful when a researcher is mainly interested in a
phenomenon common to a group of people. Each story is dissected and sections (or even
single words) belonging to a defined category are collected from different texts produced by a
number of narrators (Lieblich et al. 1998). Polkinghorne calls the categorical approach
“analysis of narratives”, in which researchers collect narratives as data and analyse them
using paradigmatic processes, e.g., by describing themes that hold across the narratives or by
constructing taxonomies of types of narratives. The goal of comparison is to find common
conceptual manifestations among the narratives (Polkinghorne 1995).

In my dissertation1, I first constructed six different kinds of narratives (mathematical

biographies) by emplotment. Each mathematical biography contained a retrospective
explanation (Polkinghorne 1995) linking central events in the trainee’s past to account for
how his or her mathematical identity had developed. In the second phase, I systematically
compared the six narratives (mathematical biographies) in terms of themes such as memories
from the students’ years at school, their beliefs of mathematics at the beginning of teacher
education, and the facilitators which seemed to change their mathematical identity.

The second dichotomy used by Lieblich et al. (1998) is that between the content and form of
the story. One can focus on the explicit content of an account, e.g., who participated in the
event and what happened, and also ask, for example, what motives of the narrator are
revealed. On the other hand, the content may be kept in the background and the focus placed
on the form of the narrative, e.g., the structure of the plot, the coherence of the story, and the
choice of vocabulary. In this approach, linguistic features of the narrative are used to assess
its emotional content. (Lieblich et al. 1998)

Like Lieblich et al. (1998), I would emphasise that the distinction between form and content
is not clear-cut in narrative inquiry; in many situations it is not reasonable to separate the two,
or the whole story from the categories it exemplifies. Accordingly, it is more appropriate to
apply their classification as an analytical bridge: the ultimate purpose can be to integrate the
approaches into a whole.

4. Examples of narrative inquiry

1
I have taken the data and examples used here from my dissertation (Kaasila 2000), but reanalysed part of the data for
purposes of this article. My dissertation involved 60 elementary teacher trainees in their second year of studies at the
University of Lapland, Finland in Autumn 1997 and in Spring 1998. Based on the questionnaire (especially school time
memories), I selected 14 students for more detailed observation in the training school in a period of practice teaching known
as Subject Didactics 2 (SD 2) in November and December of 1997. After my initial analysis of the cases, I selected six
elementary student teachers with different backgrounds and constructed their mathematical biographies, four of whom I refer
to here: Vesa and Sirpa had mainly positive, and Leila and Laura negative views of themselves as learners of mathematics at
the beginning of the methods course. The research data included interviews conducted in two phases as well as teaching
portfolios that were prepared based on the mathematics lessons in SD 2. (Kaasila 2000)
In this section I will exemplify the narrative approaches mentioned in section three using
excerpts from Leila’s, Vesa’s, Sirpa’s and Laura’s data. At first, my main focus is on the
content of Leila’s story as a whole (section 4.1). The approach shares some features with an
ordinary case study, although such studies typically do not include a retrospective explanation
(Polkinghorne 1995), which was an important goal in constructing Leila’s mathematical
biography. In section 4.2, I analyse the form of the core events in Vesa’s, Sirpa’s, Leila’s and
Laura’s stories.

4.1 Focus on the content of the narrative

Leila: “The word ‘math’ makes me feel faint”

Experiences from years at school: Leila had very negative experiences of mathematics,
mathematics lessons and teachers from her school years. At the beginning of the mathematics
methods course she wrote: “Mathematics in primary school (grades 1-6) really spooked me,
because I am so bad in mathematics.” This identity talk crystallised her traumatic
recollections from school.

In the first interview, Leila said: "I recall an event which happened in second grade: My
teacher taught bigger numbers – three-digit numbers - and we had to read them out. The
teacher would write numbers like 350 on the board. I had extreme difficulty reading them out
completely… I hated myself and asked myself why I didn’t understand where I should put in
the’ hundred’… It was awful.”

This core episode shows strong self-deprecation. Leila hated herself because she could not
understand three-digit numbers. She concluded that this experience had a very negative
impact on the development of her self-confidence. Leila had similar experiences of other
topics: "It was difficult to learn multiplication tables and word problems. I was really helpless
when I tried to solve them... I wondered how the other pupils learned them so well. ”

The same trend continued in the upper grades: “In secondary school, my mathematics
learning continued to go downhill… I barely scraped by in upper secondary school.”

Leila had mainly negative memories of her mathematics teachers. She strongly attacked her
teacher in upper secondary school for favouring successful students: “In upper secondary
school, the boys who understood everything were on his good side. Those who did not
understand anything sat there with their mouths open… Math tests were the most distressing
of all tests; they really made us feel negative about math…”

In Leila’s view, most of her mathematics teachers did not understand how many difficulties
she had in learning. Given these memories, Leila considered the most important feature of a
mathematics teacher to be an ability to have ‘a positive attitude towards pupils, and especially
to encourage slow pupils’.

Leila’s assessment was that the lessons her mathematics teachers gave were mainly teacher-
centred: “First we read about the topic from the book. Then the teacher showed us on the
board how a task could be solved, and after that we did exercises from our books. This was
most of the lesson!”
Leila had adopted a belief to the effect that ‘problem solving is worthwhile but not before
pupils have mastered basic skills’. She justified this belief with her own experiences at
school. Before teaching practice, Leila’s most important challenge was to see to it that ‘pupils
could understand her teaching’. She was afraid that her teaching would fail: “This is a
difficult subject for me, so how can I teach it… I remember that I did not understand what my
teacher taught.” These excerpts show that she had very negative expectations with regard to
teaching mathematics and also a negative view of herself as a teacher of mathematics.

Experiences from second-year teaching practice: In second-year teaching practice,

organised after the mathematics methods course, Leila taught three lessons in the third grade.
The topic was the addition algorithm with three- and four-digit numbers. During her first and
second lessons, she taught the same content to two smaller groups, each consisting of half of
the class. In the first lesson, she applied problem-centred teaching: The pupils first solved four
tasks in their exercise books, and Leila then summed up the steps in the algorithm by asking
the pupils questions. She assessed her first lesson critically: “It was not at all what I wanted
it to be. I talked too much because I was nervous. I answered some questions myself…. But
the beginning is always difficult.”

In her second lesson, Leila gave more room for the pupils’ own thinking and took a step
towards pupil centricity. She evaluated this lesson as clearly better than her first. She wrote in
her teaching portfolio: “The mistakes I made earlier did not occur. The tasks pupils solved
were suitable for them. It was good that children were eager to solve the tasks... I am satisfied
because I was not nervous when teaching math. Mathematics is a clear subject, as long as the
teacher contains herself and doesn’t explain and talk too much. I need more pupil-centred
thinking and must leave out unnecessary explanations.” Leila made a point of giving all
pupils a chance to answer questions and solve tasks at the board, because ‘in my years at
school I often could solve some task, but I did not dare put my hand up’.

Leila’s reflections on her second lesson showed that a positive turn had begun in her view of
herself as a teacher of mathematics. She was mainly satisfied with the lesson. Her negative
expectations were not borne out. Leila said: ‘during my mathematics lesson I made a lot fever
mistakes than during my science lesson’. She also emphasised the importance of problem-
centred teaching: “It is important that the pupils themselves find the essence of the content.”

During her third lesson, Leila wrote two addition problems with three-digit numbers on the
board for the pupils to solve. She then applied the content to real-life situations by arranging a
shop for the pupils, where they bought different kinds of things and wrote the calculations in
their exercise books. Leila was satisfied with her third lesson. She wanted to use ‘tasks that
have a clear connection to everyday life’.

It is easy to say that Leila gained many very significant positive experiences of mathematics
teaching during teaching practice. With the exception of her first lesson, her teaching was
rather pupil- and problem-centred. Towards the end of the teaching practice period in
particular, she had become able to link what was being taught to the pupils’ world of
experience – ‘real life’. Her view of mathematics teaching became multifaceted. Leila
summed up her process of change in her mathematics portfolio: “Because I had negative
experiences during my years at school, I decided to correct things. I wanted to be the teacher
I myself hoped to have during my school years… I was very enthusiastic about the topics I
had to teach.” Her anxious feelings towards mathematics decreased, and she chose
mathematics as one of the subjects she wanted to teach during the next teaching practice.
Leila said that her supervising teacher and other students doing their teaching practice in the
same class were pivotal for her in improving her beliefs and teaching practices.

Summary of emplotment: Leila had many significant negative experiences from her years at
school. In the first core episode, she told how she hated herself because she could not
understand three-digit numbers. In Leila’s view, most of her mathematics teachers did not
understand how much difficulty she had in learning. It seems that many of Leila’s teachers
were negative role models for her: due to her memories, Leila decided to act in the opposite
way to her own teachers. Hence Leila considered her most important task as a mathematics
teacher to be to encourage slow pupils. She also wanted to avoid the teacher-centred approach
that her own teachers had used in their teaching.

Leila gained many very significant positive experiences of mathematics teaching during
second-year teaching practice. On the whole, she transformed her negative memories from her
own years at school into positive action. With her experiences it was easy for her to take the
role of weaker pupils. This seemed to be one of the main reasons why her teaching changed
towards pupil centricity. Leila’s view of herself as a teacher of mathematics improved, and
her view of teaching mathematics became multifaceted and richer than before. The significant
facilitators of positive change were her supervising teacher and two other students in the same
class who helped her.

How have I emplotted Leila’s story? In emplotting Leila’s narrative, I applied broadly some
ideas described by Polkinghorne (1995). I began by specifying the outcomes in Leila’s story.
The first was a very negative view of mathematics, which manifested itself in many ways
during her first interview at the beginning of the methods course. I then asked with reference
to my data: “Why did Leila have a negative view of mathematics?” I was searching for clues
– key events and important significant others – that seemed to have negatively influenced her
mathematical identity. I found many mathematics teachers who acted as negative role models
for Leila. The second outcome was a positive change in her mathematical identity after
teaching practice, which could be seen in her second interview. Then I asked, with reference
to my data: “How did this change happen?” and began seeking clues which seemed to explain
the change. In particular, my goal was to explicate how Leila’s experiences from her years at
school influenced her mathematical identity during teaching practice. One of the key
elements in the emplotment was that Leila’s own memories made it easy for her to take the
role of (weaker) pupils. When constructing the final version of Leila’s mathematical
biography, I arranged the data elements chronologically.

Connecting the biography in the theoretical framework: In the final phase, I connected
Leila’s mathematical biography to the broader theoretical framework that is used to interpret
the narrative. One of the key phenomena in Leila’s (and also Laura’s) biography was her
ability to identify with and put herself into the place of weaker pupils and she used this skill in
a powerful way during teaching practice. We can say that Leila used her earlier experiences of
mathematics to define her present identity: the past was always present in her identity talk.
She entered into a dialogue with her past mathematical identity and defined it in a new, more
positive manner (Kaasila 2000). Earlier, Leila thought that it was mainly her fault that she
was bad in mathematics: “I hated myself and asked myself why I didn’t understand …” What
we see here is an uncontrollable cause that is mostly internal (Weiner, 1986). Later, in her
first interview, Leila used the opposite explanation: it was her teachers’ fault that she was so
bad in mathematics. After teaching practice she thought that the reason for her difficulties lay
mostly in her teachers and in the way she had been taught at school (see also Kaasila et al.
2006). At the same time, her earlier beliefs and practices changed through new experiences
and perspectives. Yet, it is important to emphasise that past experiences do not necessarily
determine future actions (see also Polkinghorne 1995). In this phase, we can also consider
Leila’s change from the broader viewpoint of teacher change (see, e.g., Smith et al. 2005).

4.2 Focus on the form of the narrative

Having presented Leila’s case as an example of emplotment, I will now focus on how the
four pre-service teachers – Vesa, Sirpa, Laura and Leila - told their life story. The analysis
takes up the following aspects of the form of the narrative: a) its typology, b) how persons
create coherence in it (e.g., the use of metaphors, drawing on academic conceptualisation), c)
the use of other linguistic features (e.g., evidence of expectations), and d) rhetorical devices
used.

In terms of typology, Leila’s mathematical biography can be described as a narrative of

change. More precisely, at the beginning of the story (school-time memories) it represents a
regressive narrative because there was a period of deterioration: “I still continued to go
downhill.” The end of the biography (during teaching practice) represents a progressive
narrative, whose outcome is a positive change. Additionally, when Leila described events in
her own years at school, the plot of her narrative had many aspects of a tragedy. A turning
point in Leila’s mathematical identity occurred during second-year teaching practice between
her first and second lessons. Turning points fundamentally change the meaning of past
experiences. We can sum up Leila’s story as “victory through hardship”: she was sailing in
deep waters for a long time but after hard work things turned out well for her.

Like Linde (1993), I take the view that a person’s life is essentially incoherent but that she or
he retrospectively tries to construct a coherent biography. There are different ways in which
people create coherence in or add coherence to their stories. The following excerpt is taken
from Sirpa’s teaching portfolio, which she wrote after SD 2:

”A teacher’s role is to work in the background and to create as positive and safe a setting for
learning as possible. It is important that pupils learn to be active and also ’learn to learn’.”

Here Sirpa had a flexible conception of how to apply constructivist principles in mathematics
education. She draws on academic conceptualisation, especially a theory of learning. This is
one effective way to provide a framework that lends coherence to her story (see also Elbaz-
Luwisch 2002).

Another way to add coherence is the use of metaphors. Metaphors represent patterns of
thought based on systematic ways of experiencing and expressing one thing in terms of
another (Lakoff & Johnson 1980).

Laura had many negative experiences of mathematics, mathematics lessons and teachers from
her school years. She recalled:

“I felt that mathematics was extremely difficult, because I never got inside it… When I look
at some people and see juts how quickly they solve tasks, I envy them and I think: ‘My
goodness, it would be wonderful to be in the same situation’.”
We can crystallise Laura’s mathematical identity in the metaphor ‘outsider’: she seems to
adopt a fatalistic view that some people are insiders and the others are outsiders and that there
is no way to change this dichotomy.

Leila, too, used many vivid metaphors in her narrative. In order to establish that a change had
taken place, I compared metaphors before and after teaching practice. Before teaching
practice, Leila’s view of herself as a mathematics teacher was very uncertain, which appeared
in the use of Hamlet’s conundrum: “To teach mathematics? To be or not to be, that is the
question.” Through this utterance she questions whether she could teach mathematics at all in
teaching practice. After teaching practice, her metaphor for a mathematics teacher was a
travel guide. According to this metaphor learning mathematics is a kind of journey, and the
task of the teacher is to guide the traveller. Leila’s emphasis on pupil centricity was
crystallised in a drama metaphor: “It’s important that pupils play the main role during the
lesson.” Here she prioritised the pupils’ viewpoint over others. The difference between the
metaphors used before and after teaching practice is highly significant.

In analysing the linguistic features of narratives, researchers focus on how language expresses
emotion, because persons create texts according to the conventions of discourse. Capps and
Ochs (1995) have analysed the linguistic features of autobiographical narratives that convey
the process of coping with negative emotions such as fear and helplessness. The following list
provides some formal elements that may appear in emotionally laden narratives (Lieblich,
Tuval-Mashiach & Zilber 1998): adverbials such as “suddenly” and “seldom” may signal how
expected or unexpected an event is; passive and active forms of verbs may indicate the
speaker’s perception of agency; repetitions may indicate that the person elicits an emotional
charge; and use of intensifiers such as “really” or “very” and detailed descriptions of events
may manifest difficult emotions. In addition, transitions between first-person, second-person
and third-person speakers may reveal a split between the speaking identity and the
experiencing identity.

Another useful and partly parallel idea is described by Tannen (1979), who notes that core (or
key) episodes are often characteristic of ‘evidence of expectations’. In many situations a
person’s expectations are not realised. Tannen investigated how expectations based on past
experience influence the way in which the narrator constructs the story. She identified
different types of linguistic evidence of expectations, e.g., omission, repetition, backtracking,
hedges and other qualifying words or expressions, negative statements, contrastive
connectives (e.g., “but”, “on the contrary”), which indicate a turn or a change, generalisation,
evaluative language, moral judgment and addition. She claims that expectations filter and
shape perception and determine how events will be verbalised.
I used these linguistic features in my data in many phases of the analysis: for example, when I
was looking for core episodes, especially useful excerpts were ones in which pre-service
teachers used evaluative language, negatives, repetition, contrastive connectives or detailed
description.
Vesa had many positive experiences of mathematics. In the following episode, Vesa describes
how he learned to add when throwing darts at the age of four or five:

"My father has told me that I learned my mathematics when throwing darts. We often threw
darts and my brother, although two years older than I was, couldn’t add yet, but I could. I
always retrieved the darts from the dartboard… And because I liked to calculate, when I
learned to do it quickly, I always wanted to retrieve the darts even when I didn’t throw them
myself."

We can find many interesting things when we analyse the linguistic features of this core
episode. First, Vesa used indirect discourse: his father was the narrator and the main character
- the hero - of the story was his younger son, Vesa. Second, Vesa used strong evaluative
language when comparing his proficiency in mathematics to that of his older brother: ”he did
not know how to calculate yet, but I did”. Negative statements often express more about a
narrator’s cognitive structure than positive ones do (see also Labov 1972). This story has
certainly improved Vesa’s view of himself as a learner of mathematics. In addition, it seems
that Vesa has used the dartboard as a kind of model or schema (see Papert 1980) for learning
addition and, later, multiplication. For Papert the corresponding schema was a gearbox with
which he carried many abstract ideas into his head.

Linguistic features are also useful when we are looking for turning points in pre-service
teachers’ views of mathematics. During teacher education in a period of practice teaching
Sirpa taught division in the second grade. In the first lesson, she mainly went through the
content that had been taught the previous year. Sirpa’s reflection shows that she could not yet
analyse the phases of her lesson from the pupils’ perspective: ”You must think beforehand of
how to give instructions to the pupils and control your tone. Think how long every phase of
the lesson lasts.” Her focus was clearly on her own actions, and this talk reflects teacher-
centred beliefs.

Sirpa’s second lesson also reflected teacher-centred views of mathematics teaching, but now
her comments contained clear evidence of expectations:

"My second lesson, the topic of which was the measurement of length, could have been good
if I had given the pupils more opportunities to measure objects by themselves. Now I showed
them different kinds of measures, and they thought about what they could measure with them.
I should have let them explore the measures independently and to look for things to apply
them to. The pupils answered when I asked them, but not nearly in as intensive a way as they
could have.”

This reflection emphasises a criticism of teacher-centred teaching: many linguistic features,

especially the sentences beginning with the word “if” and “but” and the use of a negative
sentence and conditional, show that Sirpa’s beliefs are changing: she realised that it is useful
to analyse the lesson from the pupils’ perspective. At the same time, she presented very
concrete suggestions for what could be done differently. This talk already has evidence of
pupil-centred beliefs.

I found many salient linguistic expressions in Laura’s school-time memories. When she told
about her outsider relationship towards mathematics (cited above), she used strongly negative
utterances and evaluative language. These expressions contain intensifiers, e.g., ‘extremely’,
and interjections, e.g., ‘my goodness’. In upper secondary school Laura did not have the
courage to ask her teacher about the topics she did not understand. She said: “I thought to
myself: ‘How stupid I am, because I not yet understand this’.” “I do not understand math and
I am bad in it.… I never felt it was suitable for me.” Here the word ‘how’ is used as an
intensifier. Laura very often defines her mathematical identity by using negative sentences as
opposites to the dominant norms of our society.
When reading Laura’s or Leila’s story, we discover that they – implicitly or explicitly – orient
their narration to their audience, in this case the readers of her story and me, as interviewer.
This can be seen in many rhetorical devices that she used. A moral stance and moral
judgments are strongly reflected in many core episodes from her school years, especially
when she criticises her teacher in upper secondary school for favouring successful students
and ignoring weaker ones. In many school-time episodes, Laura and Leila described herself in
the role of victim. This is an effective rhetorical device that assures listeners that her
experiences were very tragic and also seems to be a way to protect her mathematical identity.
Laura and Leila also used metaphors and vivid narration to prompt the reader to identify with
her position.

4.3 Plausibility of narrative analysis

Like Barthes (1988), I take the view that accounts in a life story (e.g., a mathematical
biography) are not direct copies of one’s experiences; rather, they are relevant to one’s
experiences in one way or another. I do not advocate total relativism, which sees all narratives
as fictional, but nor do I consider narratives to be complete representations of reality (see also
Lieblich et al 1998). Moreover, a person reflects on past events from the perspective of his or
her present situation: when relating a narrative, one knows how it will end and the narration is
adapted accordingly (see Schütze 1984).

With a good narrative, the narrator achieves a "narrative truth" (Spence 1984). It is the
criterion we use to decide when a certain experience has been captured to our satisfaction; it
depends on continuity and closure and the extent to which the fit between the pieces takes on
an aesthetic finality. Narrative truth is what we have in mind when we say that such and such
is a good story, that a given explanation carries conviction. (Gudmundsdottir 1996)

In the research literature we can find some more specific criteria for the plausibility of
narrative analysis. I applied them in the following ways: a) by describing here Leila’s (and in
my dissertation also other pre-service teachers’) mathematical biographies in detail, so that
the voices of the trainees would be sufficiently ‘raised’ (see also Riessman 1993); b) by
emphasising the ability of ‘the narrative to explain’ (Connelly & Clandinin 1990,
Polkinghorne 1995): the retrospective ‘explanation’ included in an emplotted biography needs
to satisfy the reader so that he or she will understand the outcome of the biography; c) by
comparing the vocabulary - especially metaphors – that a pre-service teacher used before and
after the turning point in order to substantiate that a change in the view of mathematics
actually occurred; d) by using documents (lesson plans, the observation notes of the
supervising class lecturer and myself) which support the conclusion that a change occurred
also in teaching practices; e) by taking into account the comments made by the pre-service
teachers when they read their mathematical biography and evaluated how my interpretations
fitted with their own views.

5. Discussion

The focus of this article was to examine the use of narrative inquiry as a research method
when investigating pre-service teachers’ development into mathematics teachers during
elementary teacher education. Viewing narrative analysis as a process of emplotting, as
Polkinghorne (1995) does, is especially practicable when we study changes in teacher
trainees’ views of mathematics. Although the use of emplotting shares some features with an
ordinary case study, case studies typically do not include retrospective explanation, which is
an important goal in constructing a mathematical biography.
In the emplotment process the focus is on the content of the narrative. If we want to construct
a multifaceted view of a pre-service teacher’s life, it is reasonable to analyse the form of the
narrative as well. Analysing the way pre-service teachers talk about their experiences during
their own years at school and during elementary teacher education helps us to understand their
purposes, motives and actions. In addition, when we want to locate turning points in pre-
service teachers’ views of mathematics, one useful device is to analyse linguistic features in
the trainees’ narratives. A conventional case study usually does not include this kind of
analysis. We also can understand pre-service teachers’ talk from a wider viewpoint if we
focus on the ways in which they create coherence in their narration. For example, a narrator
often tries to explain to the listener things that feel exceptional: explanations create coherence
in the story (Linde 1993).

Certain challenges and qualifications connected to narrative inquiry, especially to pre-service

teachers’ mathematical biographies, are in order: First, the question of the accuracy of the
configurative plot is very complex: many narratives, e.g., autobiographies, are usually only
partially integrated into a single plot line (Polkinghorne 1995). I agree with Elbaz-Luwisch
(2002) when she says that it is not necessary to achieve a single coherent narrative voice,
because the effect of a single plotline is to answer all questions and leave no threads hanging.
Second, pre-service teachers know very well that teacher education has built-in expectations
of change, and this can steer their beliefs and actions; this rhetorical dimension should be
taken into account when analysing trainees’ narration (see e.g., Brown 2003). Third,
according to Gellert (2000), teacher trainees who found mathematics to be “awful” during
their school years will have a tendency to protect their students from mathematics, for
example, by using many learning games in their lessons and ignoring the subject proper. This
is a potential risk especially in Leila’s and Laura’s case.

The narratives analysed this article show that it is a well-founded approach to take emotions
and attitudes seriously in elementary teacher education programmes. During teacher education
we can use narratives in many ways. I have applied so called ‘narrative rehabilitation’ (cf.
Valkonen 1997): in it pre-service teachers are offered opportunities to tell stories about their
school time memories and share their experiences with other in smaller groups. If students
remember their past in mathematics as one of mostly failure and if they see only a future
threat in the subject, they will unconsciously interpret mathematics as a tragic tale in their
lives. When students reflect on the events related to mathematics in their lives and realise that
the interpretation can be changed, this frees them to seek new perspectives on their past and
future their involvement with mathematics. (Kaasila 2000) This kind of ‘identity work’ can be
useful also when pre-service teachers have positive experiences of their own school years but
have difficulties in putting themselves in the position of weaker pupils when teaching
mathematics.

References

Barthes, R. (1988). Introduction to Structural Analysis of Narratives. In R. Barthes

(Ed.), The Semiotic Challenge (pp. 95-135). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Bikner-Ashbahs, A. (2003). A social extension of a psychological interest theory.
In: Proceedings of PME27.
Retrieved from http://onlinedb.terc.edu/PME2003/PDF/RR_bikner-ashbahs.pdf
Brown. T. 2003. Mathematical identity in initial teacher training. In: Proceedings of PME 27.
Available online http://onlinedb.terc.edu/PME2003/PDF/RR_brown_T.pdf
Bruner, J. (1986). Actual Minds, Possible Worlds. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Bruner, J. (1991). The Narrative Construction of Reality. Critical Inquiry 18, 1-23.
Capps, E. & Ochs, L. (1995). Constructing panic: The discourse of agoraphobia. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Clandinin, D.J. & Connelly, M. (2000). Narrative Inquiry. Experience and Story in
Qualitative Research. San Francisco: Wiley.
Connelly, F. & Clandinin, D. (1990). Stories of Experience and Narrative Inquiry.
Educational Researcher 19 (4), 2-14.
Denzin, N. (1989). Interpretive Biography. Qualitative Research Methods Series:
17. Newbury Park: Sage.
Elbaz-Luwisch, F. (2002). Immigrant Teachers: Stories of Self and Place.
http://construct.haifa.ac.il/~freemae/immigrant%20teachers%20rev.doc
Gellert, U. (2000). Mathematics Instruction in Safe Space: Prospective Elementary Teachers'
Views of Mathematics Education. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education 3 (3),
251-270.
Gellert, U. (2001). Research on attitudes in mathematics education - a discursive perspective.
In M. van den Heuvel-Panhuizen (ed.) Proceedings of the PME25. Vol. 3, (pp. 33-40),
Utrecht: Utrecht University.
Gudmundsdottir, S. (1996). The Teller, the Tale, and the One Being Told: The
Narrative Nature of the Research Interview. Curriculum Inquiry 23 (3), 293-306.
Hannula, M.S. (2003). Fictionalising experiences - experiencing through fiction. For
the Learning of Mathematics 23 (3), 33-39
Heikkinen, H., Syrjälä, L., Huttunen, R. & Estola, E. (2004). It's a living thing. Narratives in
Teacher Education. A paper presented at ECER 2004, Crete, University of Rethymnon
Kaasila, R. (2000). “Eläydyin oppilaiden asemaan [‘An Insight into the Role of Pupils.’ The
significance of school recollections in the formation of the conceptions and teaching
practices of mathematics for preservice teachers] Acta Universitatis Lapponiensis 32.
Rovaniemi, Doctoral dissertation.
Kaasila, R., Hannula, M.,S., Laine A. & Pehkonen, E. (2006). Facilitators for Change
of Elementary Teacher Student’s view of Mathematics. In J. Novotna, H. Morakova, M
Kratka & N. Stehlokova (eds.) Proceedings of the PME30, Vol 3. (pp. 385-392).
Prague: University of Prague.
Labov, W. (1972). Language in the Inner City. Studies in the Black English Vernacular.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1980). The Metaphorical Structure of the Human Conceptual
System. Cognitive Science 4, 195-208.
Lieblich, A., Tuval-Mashiach, R. & Zilber, T. (1998). Narrative Research. Reading, Analysis
and Interpretation. London: Sage.
Linde, C. (1993). The Creation of Coherence. New York: Oxford University Press.
Mishler, E. (1986). Research Interviewing. Context and Narrative. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.
Op ’t Eynde, P., De Corte, E. & Verschaffel, L.(2002). Framing students' mathematics-related
beliefs: quest for conceptual clarity and a comprehensive categorization. In G. Leder, E.
Pehkonen & G. Törner (Eds.) Beliefs: A hidden variable in mathematics education?
(pp. 13-37), Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Op ’t Eynde, P. (2004). A Socio-constructivist Perspective on the Study of Affect in
Mathematics Education. In M. Høines & A. Fuglestad (Eds.) Proceedings of the PME
28, Vol. 1 (pp. 118-122). Bergen: Bergen University College
Papert, S. (1980). Mindstorms. Children, computers and powerful ideas. New York: Basic
Books.
 Pehkonen, E. & Pietilä, A. (2003). On Relationships between Beliefs and Knowledge in
Mathematics Education. In: Proceedings of the CERME-3.
http://www.dm.unipi.it/~didattica/CERME3/proceedings/Groups/TG2/TG2_pehkonen_
cerme3.pdf
Polkinghorne, D. (1995). Narrative Configuration in Qualitative Analysis. In J. Hatch & R.
Wisniewski (Eds.) Life History and Narrative, (pp. 5-23). London: Falmer Press.
Ricoeur, P. (1983). Time and Narrative. Vol. 1. Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press.
Ricoeur, P. (1992). Oneself as Another. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Riessman, K. (1993). Narrative Analysis. Qualitative Research Methods Series. 30.
Newbury Park: Sage.
Schütze, F. (1984). Kognitive Figuren des Autobiographischen Stegreiferzählens. In
M. Kohli & G. Robert (Hrsg.) Biographie und Soziale Wirklichkeit (pp. 78-117)
Stuttgart: Metzler.
Seah, W.T. (2002). The Perception of, and Interaction with, Value Differences by Immigrant
Teachers of Mathematics in Two Australian Secondary Classrooms. Journal of
Intercultural Studies, 23, 189-210.
Smeyers, P. & Verhesschen, P. (2001). Narrative analysis as philosophical research: bridging
the gap between the empirical and the conceptual. International Journal of Qualitative
Studies in Education, 14, 71-84.
Smith, T. (2003). Connecting Theory and Reflective Practice through the Use of
Personal Theories. In N. Pateman, B. Dougherty & J. Zilliox (Eds.),
Proceedings of PME27, Vol 4. University of Hawaii, Honolulu, pp. 215-222.
Smith, S; Williams, S. & Smith, M. (2005) A process model for change in
elementary mathematics teachers’ beliefs and practices. In G. Lloyd, M.
Wilson, J. Wilkins & S. Behm. (Eds.) Proceedings of PME-NA 27.
Roanoke, Virginia: Virginia Polytechnic Institute
Spence, P. (1984). Narrative truth and historical truth. New York: W.W. Norton.
Tannen, D. (1979). What's in a frame? Surface evidence for underlying
expectations. In R. Freedle (Ed), New directions in discourse processing (pp.137-181).
New Jersey: Norwood.
Valkonen, J. (1997). Tarinallisuus kuntoutuksessa. [Narrative in rehabilitation]. Psykologia, 6,
415-426.
Weiner, B. (1986). An attributional theory of motivation and emotion. New York:
Springer-Verlag.

This article has been published in the following international journal:

Kaasila, R. (2007). Using Narrative Inquiry for Investigating the Becoming of a

Mathematics Teacher. ZDM – International Journal of Mathematics Education, 39 (3),
205-213.

View publication stats