Incoherencies in elementary pre-service teachers’ understanding of calculations in proportional tasks

Surani Joshua; Mi Yeon Lee

doi:10.29333/iejme/12178

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Surani Joshua ¹ , Mi Yeon Lee ¹ ^*

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¹ Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA^* Corresponding Author

Abstract

In this study we investigated pre-service teachers’ (PSTs) proportional reasoning and how they interpret their calculations in proportional tasks. We administered a written questionnaire to 199 PSTs and used an inductive content analysis approach for data analysis. We found that one item, in which PSTs were asked to interpret the meaning of the results of their calculations, had unusually low coherency, and applying open coding to the responses revealed several common errors. We argue these common errors cannot be dismissed as simple unit or rounding mistakes but rather reflect problems in how respondents think about quantities, story problems, and the nature of mathematics itself. We end with suggestions on how to address these problems.

Keywords

pre-service teacher education
teacher knowledge
proportional reasoning
problem solving
quantitative reasoning

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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Article Type: Research Article

INT ELECT J MATH ED, Volume 17, Issue 4, November 2022, Article No: em0698

https://doi.org/10.29333/iejme/12178

Publication date: 25 Jun 2022

Article Views: 1607

Article Downloads: 1060

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Funding

No funding source is reported for this study.

Disclosure

Declaration of interest: No conflict of interest is declared by authors.

Data sharing statement: Data supporting the findings and conclusions are available upon request from the corresponding author.

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How to cite this article

APA

Joshua, S., & Lee, M. Y. (2022). Incoherencies in elementary pre-service teachers’ understanding of calculations in proportional tasks. International Electronic Journal of Mathematics Education, 17(4), em0698. https://doi.org/10.29333/iejme/12178

Vancouver

Joshua S, Lee MY. Incoherencies in elementary pre-service teachers’ understanding of calculations in proportional tasks. INT ELECT J MATH ED. 2022;17(4):em0698. https://doi.org/10.29333/iejme/12178

AMA

Joshua S, Lee MY. Incoherencies in elementary pre-service teachers’ understanding of calculations in proportional tasks. INT ELECT J MATH ED. 2022;17(4), em0698. https://doi.org/10.29333/iejme/12178

Chicago

Joshua, Surani, and Mi Yeon Lee. "Incoherencies in elementary pre-service teachers’ understanding of calculations in proportional tasks". International Electronic Journal of Mathematics Education 2022 17 no. 4 (2022): em0698. https://doi.org/10.29333/iejme/12178

Harvard

Joshua, S., and Lee, M. Y. (2022). Incoherencies in elementary pre-service teachers’ understanding of calculations in proportional tasks. International Electronic Journal of Mathematics Education, 17(4), em0698. https://doi.org/10.29333/iejme/12178

MLA

Joshua, Surani et al. "Incoherencies in elementary pre-service teachers’ understanding of calculations in proportional tasks". International Electronic Journal of Mathematics Education, vol. 17, no. 4, 2022, em0698. https://doi.org/10.29333/iejme/12178