Relationship between Teacher Trainee’s Proficiency in Solving Standard Linear Equations (SLE) and Their Proficiency in Posing Word Problems Involving Standard Linear Equations

Abstract

The major aim of teaching Mathematics at every level of education is to help students solve problems. Mathematics teachers, therefore, need to possess these requisite skills to impact these problem-solving techniques in the students they teach. Hence, this paper employed a case study to investigate the strength of the relationship between teacher trainees' Problem Solving and their Problem Posing skills, using a simultaneous linear equation. It involved forty-five teacher trainees from College of Education. Three research questions were used and an achievement task was used to collect data. The data was analyzed along some thematic dimensions, in percentages. A Pearson Product Moment correlation matrix was used to determine the relationship between teacher trainees' proficiency in Problem Solving and Problem Posing. The result revealed a significant positive relationship r=0.34 between Problem Solving and Problem Posing ability of trainees. There also exist gender differences in this relationship, with females performing better than males. This shows that when the two concepts are integrated into teaching Mathematics, it could promote students' proficiency in solving word problems. Teaching mathematics through Problem Solving should be reinforced and the introduction of Problem Posing into the mathematics curriculum at the College of Education be considered.