Characteristics of pre-service teachers’ performance in problem posing

Abstract

Problem posing is as much important as problem solving. In order to enhance problem solving skill, students need to be trained to pose a question or problem. Hence, teachers need this ability. This study was a descriptive research which aimed to describe the characteristics of pre-service teachers’ performance in problem posing. The research participants were 34 pre-service mathematics teachers who were enrolled in the Assessment Course in 2017/2018 academic year. The research instrument was a validated problem posing worksheet. Data were collected through a test. The results showed that the students preferred to make free essay problems than the structured ones, and only a few made open problems. All of the students’ problems were resolvable. The difficulty level of the problems was varied from high (dominated by analytical problem), medium, to low (dominated by understanding) level. Related to the type of the problems, the ability of pre-service teachers in posing questions with the type of post-solution was the lowest, and the type of within-solution was the highest. This results implicate that pre-service teachers need to be accustomed to creating open and good problems for their future students.