Search

The aim of this study is to investigate pre-service mathematics teachers' beliefs towards mathematics and modelling in mathematical modelling processes. To achieve this aim, a phenomenology design was utilized. The study was conducted with 30 elementary level pre-service mathematics teachers receiving mathematical modelling courses. A semi-structured interview form was used to explore teachers' beliefs. At the end of the study, it was seen that mathematical modelling applications caused an increase of application-oriented beliefs. It was also observed that pre-service teachers who had schema and formalism-oriented beliefs evaluated mathematical modelling practices as time consuming and incomprehensible. Findings imply that modelling applications should be included in all levels of mathematics instructional curricula, in addition to the undergraduate curriculum.

There are opinions about approaching the proof in mathematics education need to change as providing students to understand the mathematical proof rather than developing formal mathematical proof skills. In this context, proofs without words described as informal proofs can be used in proof teaching. The purpose of this study was to investigate the processes of high school students to do proofs without words. This study was designed as the case study a high school in Turkey. Consequently, activities of proof without words that allow the student to take an active role in the proof process can be presented as an alternative method in proof teaching and the proof without words can be used for teaching students the stages of proof process. It is necessary for teachers to be aware of the proof process stages and guide the students.

The aim of this study is to explain students' ability to transfer their knowledge about mathematical series to the problems that they encounter. The data of the study were obtained by using two different tests, namely "Problem Solving Test (PST)" and "Series Character Identification Test (SCT)" which were developed by the researchers. The study was conducted to third- grade students from department of elementary school mathematics education in the 2009-2010 academic year. In view of the analysis of the data, it was observed that the students experienced no difficulty in the SCT which required procedural knowledge. They experienced difficulty in the PST which required skill to transfer their knowledge about the series to the circumstances that they encounter. According to these results, it was determined that the students experienced difficulty in transforming real life problems to series and interpreting these problems. (Contains 2 tables and 3 figures.)

The purpose of this study is to investigate the mathematical literacy of the 15-year-old students in terms of PISA mathematical literacy questions. The research model of this study is the survey model in the quantitative models. The sample of this study was composed of 1.227 students who received formal education in five different types of schools (science high schools, Anatolian high schools, private high schools, public high schools and vocational high schools) of various cities, each of which was selected from each of seven geographical regions in Turkey. Nine questions were applied and revealed in the mathematical area in PISA in 2003 as a data collection tool. The results of this study show that, in terms of the proportion of answering the assessment questions, the best performing type of school is science high schools. It was shown that a great number of students still cannot answer the proficiency level questions in the desired way and only half can answer the lower-intermediate and intermediate questions.