– In the USA, school districts are funding mathematics coaching positions to provide school-level support to teachers. The purpose of this paper is to survey school personnel whose job responsibilities included mathematics coaching in order to examine their job responsibilities and what they felt that their job responsibilities should be.
– In all, 67 elementary school mathematics coaches completed a survey that included 30 aspects of the job of elementary school mathematics leaders.
– Quantitative analyses indicated that there were statistically significant differences between their actual roles and their preferred roles on 24 of the 30 items. This means that coaches reported that the aspects of their current role did not align to what they thought their job should be.
– The findings indicate a need to collect further information in a longitudinal study, potentially from a combination of surveys, interviews, and observations, about elementary mathematics coaches’ job responsibilities and the impact that coaches have on both teachers and students.
– The findings indicate a need for school leaders, mathematics leaders (coaches), and classroom teachers to work together to utilize mathematics leaders more effectively so as to best support teachers’ instruction and students’ learning.
– While some research has been published on literacy coaching, the research base on mathematics coaching is scant. This study contributes to the knowledge base about the roles and duties of coaches in elementary school settings.
