Prospective teachers’ skills in problem posing with regard to different problem posing models

Abstract

It is significant that prospective teachers, who are supposed to assess problems posed by their students and guide them about this issue, should be knowledgeable about their own problem posing performances and the difficulties they could encounter during this process. In this study, it was aimed to determine prospective teachers’ problem posing skills appropriate to selecting, translating, comprehending and editing models and possible difficulties they could encounter during this process. This study was realized with 80 senior student teachers in the department of primary education in mathematics during 2010-2011 autumn term in a state university. A test with four items about fractions appropriate to problem posing models was used for data gathering. Each problem statement's appropriateness to problem posing models was analyzed. In the study, the results indicated that prospective teachers’ success in problem posing is found low, besides, they had the highest difficulty in “comprehending” problem posing model.