ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Teacher Education
COMPETING MEANINGS, PERTURBATION, AND ENGENDERING SHIFTS IN (PROSPECTIVE) TEACHER MEANINGS
Kevin C. Moore 1
Halil I Tasova 2
Irma E. Stevens 3
Biyao Liang 4
1. University of Georgia, Athens, United States
2. California State University San Bernardino, San Bernardino, United States
3. University of Rhode Island, Kingston, United States
4. The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Education, Hong Kong, Hong Kong, SAR China
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Abstract
Through building models of student thinking, researchers have identified quantitative reasoning as a foundation for students' mathematical development. This has generated a need to support teachers' capacity to teach for such reasoning. In this paper, we discuss a perspective on supporting prospective and practicing teachers in constructing meanings that foreground quantitative reasoning and research-based models of student thinking. We call this perspective competing meanings and describe it as a three-phase cognitive process. First is a perturbation of an extant meaning resulting from its enactment. Second is the construction of an alternative meaning to reconcile the perturbation. Third are acts of reflection to compare extant and alternative meanings. We introduce the competing meanings perspective and illustrate it with examples. We also discuss theoretical resources that inform this perspective, including Piagetian constructs, quantitative reasoning, and mathematical knowledge for teaching.
Summary
Keywords
Cognition, Learning Theory, Quantitative reasoning, Teacher Education, teacher knowledge
Received
29 June 2025
Accepted
18 February 2026
Copyright
© 2026 Moore, Tasova, Stevens and Liang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Kevin C. Moore
Disclaimer
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.