Prospective elementary teachers’ number sense performance in Taiwan

Abstract

To examine prospective teachers’ number sense performance, two-hundred and eighty prospective teachers who majored in elementary teaching from one teacher training institution of southern Taiwan were selected to participate in this study. Results showed that about one-fifths of the prospective teachers could apply number sense based method (such as using benchmarks or estimation appropriately) and about a half of prospective teachers relied on rule-based methods when responding to number sense questions. Results also indicated that these prospective teachers highly focused on written method to solve the number sense questions. It is reasonable to believe that if we want to improve students’ number sense, then an important action that should be taken is to improve the quality of their teachers’ knowledge on number sense.