Enhancing pre-service mathematics teachers understanding of sampling distributions with conceptual change texts

Zeynep Medine Özmen,Bülent Güven

doi:10.33902/jpr.2022175561

Abstract

The present study aimed to remediate pre-service teachers’ misconceptions about sampling distributions and to develop their conceptual understanding through the use of conceptual change texts (CCTs). The participants consisted of 84 pre-service teachers. To determine the pre-service teachers’ conceptual understanding of sampling distributions, an achievement test was utilized. Five conceptual change texts were prepared. In this study, the number of correct responses of pre-service teachers increased from pre-test to post-test and delayed test. This increase was statistically significant in favor of the post-test and delayed test. The results demonstrated that, due to the knowledge gained from the CCTs, the pre-service teachers improved their conceptual understanding about sampling distributions. Moreover, this study represents an important effort to integrate CCTs in mathematics and statistics education.

Highlights

There is a need for discovering alternative instructional techniques that can make learning more meaningful and permanent in diverse subject areas (Önder & Geban, 2006; Özmen & Naseriazar, 2018). This need applies to mathematics and statistics education, in particular, where students taught according to traditional methods often fail to develop conceptual-level understanding in a range of subject areas
Because this study focused on conceptual understanding, concepts that did not apply to the theoretical knowledge of sampling distributions were not considered; only three of the knowledge components (ii, iii, iv) were applied
It can be inferred that administering the achievement tests after they had read the conceptual change texts (CCTs) had the most significant effect on their understanding and achievement

Summary

Introduction

Learning has often been described as an active process in which students play a positive role, building on their previous knowledge, ideas and experiences to develop new knowledge (Driver, 1981, as cited in Çalık et al, 2007; Günay, 2005) According to this constructivist point of view, traditional teaching approaches are considered as inadequate for supporting conceptual knowledge, or the understanding of key concepts (Moseley & Brenner, 1997; Önder & Geban, 2006; Posner et al, 1982; Tsai, 1999). There is a need for discovering alternative instructional techniques that can make learning more meaningful and permanent in diverse subject areas (Önder & Geban, 2006; Özmen & Naseriazar, 2018) This need applies to mathematics and statistics education, in particular, where students taught according to traditional methods often fail to develop conceptual-level understanding in a range of subject areas.

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