Pre-Service Primary School Teachers' Pedagogical Content Knowledge on Quadrilaterals

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate pre-service primary school teachers’ (PPSTs) pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) on quadrilaterals. In this study, the PCK components of knowledge of understanding students (KUS) and knowledge of instructional strategies (KIS) were used. The participants of the study consisted of 83 PPSTs studying at the primary education department of a university in Turkey. The illustrative case study method was used, while six scenarios were used as the data collection tool developed by researchers. The data obtained from open-ended scenarios were analyzed by using the summative content analysis technique. As a result of the study, it was observed that the KUS of the PPSTs about quadrilaterals was not on the desired level. Moreover, the KIS of the PPSTs was also not on the desired level. As a result of the study, it was observed that, in the process of eliminating the mistakes of students, the PPSTs preferred mainly the "Direct Instructional" method, which is based on traditional approaches and centers the teacher.

Track Prospective Mathematics Teachers' Understanding of Special Quadrilaterals: An Exploration of Level 3 of Geometric Thinking

“…In general, prospective mathematics teachers are expected to reach these levels to instruct quadrilaterals effectively and not to be among the reason why students face difficulties while learning quadrilaterals (Harper & Driskell, 2021;Ndlovu, 2014;Özdemir & Çekirdekci, 2022;Şahin & Başgül, 2020). As discussed by Avcu (2022), when teaching definitions of quadrilaterals, teachers should know that (1) the definition must include only necessary and sufficient conditions (common content knowledge) and (2) multiple equivalent and non-equivalent definitions could be generated for a quadrilateral (specialised content knowledge).…”

“…More specifically, the topic of quadrilaterals considers a substantial area of research on reasoning skills that could be developed through recognising geometric figures and exploring and linking their characteristics to form deductive inferences (Okazaki & Fujita, 2007;Van de Walle et al, 2012, as cited in Erdogan & Dur, 2014). Yet, it stays among geometry topics wherein learners experience various difficulties, including defining quadrilaterals and determining relationships among them (Fujita, 2012;Özerem, 2012;Şahin & Başgül, 2020). These difficulties continue even in today's mathematics classrooms because it has multiple origins that, side by side, need to be improved to guarantee the quality of the intended outcomes.…”

“…Do current educational courses help them develop adequate knowledge of basic geometric figures? That is highlighted in Şahin and Başgül's (2020) study in which, besides the limited representation of concepts in textbooks and the complicated structure of quadrilaterals, the inadequate teachers' knowledge regarding concepts and their focus on the prototypical models remains one reason why students maintain several misconceptions (e.g., failure to expressing the notion of parallelism in cases of rectangles and squares, portray a rectangle as a combination of two squares [Ozkan & Bal, 2017]). As concluded, previous research revealed that most prospective teachers stay unable to (1) precisely define, classify, and determine the minimal characteristics of quadrilaterals; (2) recognise relationships among quadrilaterals; also (3) their level of geometric thinking related to this topic is low (Çontay & Paksu, 2012;Duatepe-Paksu et al, 2012;Erdogan & Dur, 2014;Fujita & Jones, 2007;Fujita, 2012;Kuzniak & Rauscher, 2007;Miller, 2018;Pagiling & Nur'aini, 2022;Pickreign, 2007).…”