Pre-school Teacher Candidates' Use of Mathematical Concepts in Daily Life

Abstract

In this study, pre-school teacher candidates' use of mathematical concepts that are frequently used in daily conversations was examined. To achieve this, a sequential explanatory pattern, one of the mixed method designs, was used. The research was carried out with two study groups. The first study group consisted of 114 pre-school teacher candidates while the second study group consisted of eight teacher candidates who were selected by considering their success level among these teacher candidates. The purpose of determining the second study group was to focus on classroom activities within the scope of teaching practice. The teacher candidates were asked two questions related to comparison, classification, ordering and matching, which are among the mathematical concepts that are frequently used in daily conversations. Descriptive analysis techniques were used in the analysis of the research data. As a result of the research, the success of the teacher candidates in using the concepts indicating quality, quantity, position and contrast in mathematics was found very low. In addition, it was observed that teacher candidates mostly exhibited erroneous usage regarding the use of words "more" and "most".