MIDDLE SCHOOL MATHEMATICS TEACHERS’ KNOWLEDGE OF EIGHTH-GRADE STUDENTS’ ALGEBRAIC THINKING

2023-2-13
Yılmaz Tığlı, Nurbanu
Show full item record
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
274
views
214
downloads
The first purpose of this study is to investigate middle school mathematics teachers’ knowledge of students’ algebraic thinking. This purpose also includes the prerequisite knowledge needed to learn algebra. The second purpose of the study is to examine middle school mathematics teachers’ anticipations and interpretations regarding their students’ performances in algebra. The last purpose of the study is to discover the causal attributions of middle school mathematics teachers regarding their students’ difficulties in algebra. To that end, the data were collected from five middle school mathematics teachers in the spring semester of the 2018-2019 and the fall semester of the 2019-2020 academic years. The data sources are a teacher questionnaire, audio recordings of the semi-structured interviews, and field notes. The findings presented that middle school mathematics teachers could possess limited information regarding the prerequisite knowledge students should have prior to learning algebra. Middle school mathematics teachers could anticipate students’ possible solutions and performances in simple translations from verbal statements to symbolic expressions and solving equations. However, their anticipations were not aligned with students’ performances in the tasks that required a relational understanding of equivalence, conceptual understanding of the notion of variable, and functional thinking. Although teachers could identify students’ difficulties in corresponding items, they could not precisely express the underlying reasons for their difficulties. Lastly, teachers mainly attributed students’ difficulties to external, stable, and uncontrollable factors. They consider that students' difficulties are mainly related to the students themselves, such as their cognitive processes, effort, or motivation.
Middle School Mathematics Teachers, Algebraic Thinking, Variable, Functional Thinking, Causal attributions
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/102038
Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis

Suggestions

Investigation into prospective middle school mathematics teachers' noticing of students' algebraic thinking within the context of pattern generalization
Özel, Zeynep.; Işıksal Bostan, Mine; Department of Secondary Science and Mathematics Education (2019)
The purpose of this study was to investigate prospective middle school mathematics teachers’ noticing skills of students’ algebraic thinking within the context of pattern generalization. In order to obtain in- depth exploration and understanding of issue, the qualitative research method, in particular, the case study design was used. Thirty-two prospective teachers who were studying at one of the public universities located in Ankara were selected via purposive sampling as participants. Data was collected i...
Middle school mathematics teachers’ sense of self-efficacy for teaching mathematics to fifth grade students
Şener, Esra; Çakıroğlu, Erdinç; Department of Elementary Science and Mathematics Education (2016)
The purpose of the study was to investigate the issue of whether middle school mathematics teachers' sense of self-efficacy for teaching differs in terms of type of teaching licence, gender and year of teaching experience. The current thesis also aimed at examining the relationship between middle school mathematics teachers' sense of self-efficacy for teaching mathematics to fifth grades and teaching independent from grade levels. The data were collected from 208 mathematics teachers from 50 public middle s...
Preservice Middle School Mathematics Teachers’ Knowledge about Students’ Mathematical Thinking Related to Perimeter and Area
Güner, Pınar; Akyüz, Didem (2017-10-01)
The purpose of the current study is to examine preservice middle school mathematics teachers’ knowledge about students’ mathematical thinking related to perimeter and area and determine the consistency between this knowledge and students’ actual mathematical thinking. Case study, one of the qualitative research designs, was used to gain an in-depth understanding of the situation. The study was conducted with four senior preservice middle school mathematics teachers who enrolled in the program of elementary ...
Middle school mathematics teachers’ perceptions of inclusion and their use of teaching strategies in basic arithmetical operations and problems
Gülden, Berna; Akyüz, Didem; Department of Elementary Science and Mathematics Education (2019)
The aim of this study is to examine the perceptions of middle school mathematics teachers about inclusion and their teaching strategies in basic arithmetical operations and problems. In addition, the other purpose is to investigate opinions of middle school mathematics teachers about touch point, concrete-representational-abstract (CRA) and virtual-representational-abstract (VRA) strategies. The study was carried out in the 2018-2019 academic year in a middle school in Küçükçekmece, Istanbul with six mathem...
A phenomenological study on mathematics teachers having experience with innovative learning activities: views, enablers,and barriers
Erbasan, Elçin; Çakıroğlu, Erdinç; Department of Mathematics Education (2021-2-10)
The purpose of the study was to investigate middle school mathematics teachers’ views and experiences regarding innovative mathematics learning activities. This study also aimed to determine enablers and barriers in the process of the activities and teachers’ suggestions that may lead the educational stakeholders to increase the qualityofmathematicsinstruction and accordingly, student learning. Phenomenological research was conducted with thirteen middle school mathematics teachers ...
Citation Formats
N. Yılmaz Tığlı, “MIDDLE SCHOOL MATHEMATICS TEACHERS’ KNOWLEDGE OF EIGHTH-GRADE STUDENTS’ ALGEBRAIC THINKING,” Ph.D. - Doctoral Program, Middle East Technical University, 2023.
METU IIS - Integrated Information Service open@metu.edu.tr