Date

2008

Author

Seviş, Şerife

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The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of a mathematics teaching methods course on pre-service elementary mathematics teachers’ content knowledge for teaching mathematics (CKTM). In order to accomplish this purpose, pre-service mathematics teachers’ understanding of basic concepts and procedures in school mathematics, use of mathematical definitions, presentation of mathematical content to students, identification of common errors, misconceptions and solution strategies and evaluation of unusual solution methods were examined with the help of a multiple choice test. The data were collected from 43 senior pre-service mathematics teachers from a teacher education program at a large public university in Ankara. The participants were given an 83-item test to measure their content knowledge for mathematics teaching at the beginning and after the methods course. The purpose of the pre- and post-test assessment was to measure the amount of change in the participants' knowledge for mathematics teaching. The test was developed and piloted at the University of Michigan in the USA for Learning Mathematics for Teaching (LMT) Project. Quantitative data analysis techniques were used to answer the research questions. The results indicated that there was a significant effect of the mathematics teaching methods course on pre-service teachers’ content knowledge for teaching mathematics. Moreover, the findings showed that there is no significant mean difference between male and female pre-service teachers, and between the pre-service teachers who have taken at least one mathematics teaching elective course and the ones who have not taken any elective course related to mathematics teaching in terms of their CKTM. Also, the study showed that there is a significant positive relationship between pre-service teachers’ CKTM and their academic achievement on undergraduate mathematics content courses. The study is expected to make important contributions to the literature by providing information about whether the methods courses significantly contribute to pre-service teachers’ understanding of knowledge for mathematics teaching. Moreover, the findings of the study is hoped to inform teacher educators and policy makers about the needs and improvements in teacher preparation programs.

Subject Keywords

Mathematics education.

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/2/12609644/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/17820

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis