Pre-service secondary teachers’ knowledge of the function concept: A cluster analysis approach

Abstract

Teacher training is a key aspect for the success of any educational system and it is a prior challenge to facein-depth in Zambia. This study explores some dimensions of prospective secondary mathematics teachers’ subject-matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge restricted to the topic of the function concept. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire that was administered to a sample of 150 prospective teachers enrolled attwo public universities inCopperbelt, Zambia. A two-step cluster analysis was used to reveal natural grouping within the datasetobtained. As a result, a two-cluster solution was revealedas the solution that best profiled the data, with participants within both clusters scoringlow in the knowledge domains under consideration. To further understand the results a one-way between-subjects multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and a follow-up discriminant function analysis (DFA) were also conducted. Common content knowledge was shown to be the most important factor in discriminating between prospective teachers in Cluster 1 and those in Cluster 2. The knowledge inadequacies identified are certainly worrisome and are likely to be transferred to young learners at secondary schools. Consequently, it is necessary to address with some urgency certain reforms in educational policies for teacher training programs in Zambia.

Teaching Practice of Engineering Management Course for Engineering Education Certification under Background of Artificial Intelligence

“…Cluster analysis is one of the most commonly used methods in data mining, which can find unknown objects in a database [18]. e principle of this classification is "like things cluster together."…”

Pre-service Secondary Teachers’ Mathematical Pedagogical Content Knowledge Self-concept related to their Content Knowledge of Functions and Students

“…Having already published two papers from the project (Marban & Sintema, 2020;Sintema et al, 2018), this study reports results of pre-service teachers' MPCK perceptions related to their content knowledge of functions and students. This study sought to answer a question concerned with pre-service mathematics secondary teachers' MPCK related to the concept of a function.…”

“…There is research evidence in literature on studies focused on the concept of a function in Zambia (Malambo, 2019;Marban & Sintema, 2020;Sintema, Phiri, & Marban, 2018) and abroad (Even, 1992;Kontorovich, 2017;Ozgen, 2010;Paoletti, 2020;Ubah & Bansilal, 2018;Wasserman, 2017). Studies that have been conducted in Zambia have investigated pre-service teachers' knowledge of the function concept on a wider basis which included but not limited to definition of a function, quadratic, composite, inverse, one-to-one and different representations of functions.…”

“…The concept of a function is regarded as a key topic in the Zambian secondary school mathematics curriculum because knowledge of function concepts is essential in students' understanding of related topics in calculus and trigonometry (Marban & Sintema, 2020). Thus, pre-service teachers' knowledge of teaching strategies that would enable them teach function concepts effectively emerges as an important aspect of teacher education.…”