Are Pre-service Elementary Teachers able to Pose Problems for the Subtraction of Fractions?

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine whether or not pre-service elementary teachers are able to pose appropriate problems for the subtraction of fractions, if not, to determine the types of errors made in their posed problems. A qualitative research method was used in this study and the data were collected from 83 pre-service elementary teachers in the spring 2017 academic semester of a public university in Turkey using a Problem Posing Test. The test consisted of four items related to the subtraction of fractions given in number sentences. Findings showed that most of the pre-service elementary teachers could not appropriately pose problems and made distinct types of errors. It was found that the two most common errors were failing to include subtraction in the question root and expressing the subtrahend fraction as a certain amount of the minuend fraction. Teacher educators can integrate problem posing activities in their courses to give pre-service teachers opportunities to pose problems

Keywords

• Error types, fractions, problem posing, subtraction.

Are Pre-service Elementary Teachers able to Pose Problems for the Subtraction of Fractions?

Abstract

References

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