An Investigation of the Questions Prepared by Pre-Service Middle School Mathematics Teachers on Fraction Concept

Year 2018, Volume: 5 Issue: 1, 1 - 10, 14.03.2018

Nurbanu Yılmaz , İlhan Karataş

Abstract

Knowledge of assessment is
considered as a dimension for professional knowledge of teachers (Magnusson,
Krajcik, & Borko, 1999) since assessment and measurement of teachers’
knowledge is vital for quality issues in education. For this reason, the
questions prepared by pre-service elementary mathematics teachers on fractions
were investigated in the current study in order to observe pre-service
elementary mathematics teachers’ knowledge of assessment in mathematics
education based on fraction concept. By investigating the questions prepared by
pre-service teachers, the quality of questions and the competency of teachers
for preparing appropriate questions based on particular objectives were
evaluated. 34 pre-service middle school mathematics teachers (3rd
grade) were participated to the study. Case study design was employed and data
was analyzed by the use of qualitative data analyses techniques. The tasks were
investigated under three categories, knowing, applying, and reasoning based on
cognitive domain framework (Mullis & Martin, 2013). Results show that
pre-service teachers prepared traditional tasks in general. That is, the
questions included routine mathematical operations and procedures. Therefore,
they were classified to knowing and applying categories. In general, routine
mathematical tasks were preferred by pre-service teachers rather than
non-routine mathematical tasks which require reasoning level abilities. 

Keywords

Pre-service teachers, fractions, writing mathematical questions

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