Pre-service elementary mathematics teachers knowledge about definitions of integers and their knowledge about elementary students' possible misconceptions and errors in describing integers

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Eğitim Fakültesi, Matematik ve Fen Bilimleri Eğitimi Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2012

Öğrenci: AYŞENUR KUBAR

Danışman: ERDİNÇ ÇAKIROĞLU

Özet:

The aim of the study is to examine the nature of pre-service elementary mathematics teachers’ subject matter knowledge about definition of integers and the nature of pre-service elementary mathematics teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge about definitions of integers. For this purpose, pre-service mathematics teachers’ knowledge about definitions of integers, their interpretations of quoted definitions of integers, their knowledge about elementary students’ possible misconceptions and errors regarding definition of integers, and possible reasons of elementary students’ definitions of integers were examined. The thesis made use of two open-ended questions in order to gain information about pre-service teachers’ definitions of integers, their knowledge of elementary students’ possible misconceptions and errors about integers, and possible reasons of elementary students’ errors and misconceptions. In addition, this study also made use of interview questions that were related to quoted integer definitions. In the beginning of the study, two open-ended questions were administered to 38 pre-service mathematics teachers who were taking teaching practice course. 4 voluntary pre-service mathematics teachers were interviewed. The results of the study indicated that pre-service teachers preferred three categories for defining integers: "core concepts", "representation", and "other definitions". They suggested several mistakes which elementary students might make. The results of the study showed that misconceptions and errors suggested by the participants are parallel with the related literature. The reasons of the misconceptions and errors classified on the basis of the mistakes into three: negative transfer of former knowledge about number sets, students’ general insufficiency, and teaching approach.