Fraction Multiplication and Division Word Problems Posed by Different Years of Pre-Service Elementary Mathematics Teachers

Year 2018, Volume: 7 Issue: 2, 373 - 385, 15.04.2018

Tuba Aydogdu Iskenderoglu

https://doi.org/10.12973/eu-jer.7.2.373

Abstract

It is important for pre-service teachers to know the
conceptual difficulties they have experienced regarding the concepts of
multiplication and division in fractions and problem posing is a way to learn
these conceptual difficulties. Problem posing is a synthetic activity that
fundamentally has multiple answers. The purpose of this study is to analyze the
multiplication and division of fractions problems posed by pre-service
elementary mathematics teachers and to investigate how the problems posed
change according to the year of study the pre-service teachers are in. The
study employed developmental research methods. A total of 213 pre-service
teachers enrolled in different years of the Elementary Mathematics Teaching
program at a state university in Turkey took part in the study. The “Problem Posing
Test” was used as the data collecting tool. In this test, there are 3
multiplication and 3 division operations. The data were analyzed using
qualitative descriptive analysis. The findings suggest that, regardless of the
year, pre-service teachers had more conceptual difficulties in problem posing
about the division of fractions than in problem posing about the multiplication
of fractions.

Keywords

Pre-service mathematics teachers, fractions, problem posing, multiplication, division

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