meujfe

Mersin Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi

1306-7850

Mersin University

10.17860/mersinefd.306023

The Investigation of Pre-service Elementary Mathematics Teachers’ Subject Matter Knowledge About Probability

Kurt Birel

Gamze

04 16 2017

13 1 348 362 04 13 2017 04 03 2016

2005

Mersin University Journal of the Faculty of Education

Becauseof the change in the middle school mathematics curriculum in Turkey, it isnecessary to examine subject matter knowledge of pre-service elementarymathematics teachers about probability. This study is significant in terms ofthe Turkish mathematics education literature since it contributes to the futurecurriculum efforts for elementary mathematics education programs. Data werecollected through face-to-face interviews which were focused on explanationsabout basic probability concepts and an instrument which was developed forevaluating content knowledge for probability of elementary mathematics teachers.Since mathematics teachers should have both procedural and conceptual knowledgeregarding the concept taught, researcher aimed to understand to what extent pre-serviceelementary mathematics teachers are capable of conceptual and proceduralknowledge needed for probability teaching. Findings showed that the 23participants needed to develop their conceptual knowledge regarding probabilityand they tended to behave computational oriented while solving probabilityproblems which showed also their higher procedural understanding. Besides, itwas concluded that they couldn’t make expected connections between probabilityand statistics concepts.  

Probability subject matter knowledge conceptual understanding procedural understanding pre-service mathematics teachers

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