The influence of mathematics teacher education programme courses on pre-service teachers' mathematics teaching belief systems before their field experience was initially investigated through a Likert-type scale. The impact of a third year general teaching methodologies course was then investigated through the responses pre-service teachers provided in written tasks assigned at the beginning and the end of the year, based on Green's identification of belief systems (Green, T.F. 1971. "The activities of teaching." McGraw-Hill). The findings showed that pre-service teachers had formal and personal belief clusters which had similar beliefs in differing strengths. The cluster of beliefs about teacher knowledge was relatively distant. While formal beliefs did not change much, personal beliefs experienced considerable changes indicating a continuing belief-construction process. Investigating pre-service teachers' beliefs within their belief systems might help teacher educators to monitor the influence of programme experiences in order to provide them with essential student teaching opportunities. (Contains 4 tables.)