Professional Development for Teaching Mathematics with Technology: A Comparative Study of Facilitators' Beliefs and Practices in China and Germany

Facilitators, i.e., individuals who lead professional development (PD) programs, play a crucial role in providing high-quality PD to teachers, which is particularly relevant in the context of teaching mathematics with technology given the ubiquitous calls to exploit the potential of digital mathematical tools (DMT). However, quantitative research investigating facilitators' beliefs and practices remains scarce, particularly research comparing countries. In this cross-national study conducted in China and Germany, we developed an online questionnaire and surveyed n = 340 facilitators to provide a comprehensive quantitative picture of facilitators' beliefs and practices concerning PD for teaching mathematics with DMT. The results highlight various commonalities and differences between facilitators in China and Germany. We reveal significant differences concerning cooperation among facilitators, adaptation of PD materials, how facilitators professionalise themselves, and beliefs about when and how to use DMT. Furthermore, Chinese facilitators emphasise technical competence more strongly, while German facilitators focus more on developing teachers' pedagogical content knowledge. A critical commonality was that facilitators' self-efficacy concerning teaching with DMT and their self-efficacy for conducting PD for teaching mathematics with DMT was low. We discuss how the results can be linked to differences in the educational and cultural context and outline possible complements and enrichments for both countries' educational systems.