Prospective Primary School Teachers Views on the Nature of Mathematics

Abstract

This paper examines and presents descriptions of 12 prospective primary teachers' views on the nature of mathematics in USA. All the participants were elementary teacher candidates enrolled in the same mathematics method courses. Interview data show that the prospective primary teachers possess two kinds of views on the nature of mathematics: primarily traditional and even mix of traditional and nontraditional beliefs in terms of Raymond's (1997) belief criteria. Implications for teacher education were discussed at the end of the paper.