Abstract
This article presents a quantitative and qualitative study comparing how pre-service and preschool teachers perceive the relational symbols ( and =). The study population comprised 71 pre-service teachers participating in a course dedicated to teaching and learning early childhood mathematics and 149 in-service preschool teachers. A large proportion of the participants did not answer the questions correctly or give suitable reasons for their answers. There was a significant difference between the two groups, with the pre-service teachers giving a significantly greater number of correct answers and explanations. The conclusions arising from this study are that preschool teachers do not correctly comprehend the true significance of >, and =, and therefore are unlikely to teach them correctly.
Highlights
IntroductionMathematical language is a language of symbols, concepts, definitions, and theorems that does not develop naturally like a child’s natural language but needs to be taught (Ilany & Margolin, 2010)
The pre-service teachers showed a greater understanding of the unique mathematical function of the relational symbols; the preschool teachers indicated that they believed the symbols could be used for non-mathematical comparisons
The results of this study indicate that both pre-service teachers and preschool teachers have some misunderstanding regarding the appropriate use of mathematical relational symbols and believe that these symbols can be used to indicate “greater” “smaller” and “equal” for non-mathematical items
Summary
Mathematical language is a language of symbols, concepts, definitions, and theorems that does not develop naturally like a child’s natural language but needs to be taught (Ilany & Margolin, 2010). Today’s global trend is to introduce “formal” mathematics at a young age. Studies have shown that the volume and quality of preschool math practice predict a child’s success in math in elementary school (Clements & Sarama, 2006)
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