Abstract
OECD-PISA which evaluates the education quality of Europe focused on mathematics, and Turkey was ranked 50 among 72 countries. When the mathematics literacy was analyzed in terms of years, it is seen that the performance of the students in Turkey in PISA 2015 was lower compared to PISA 2009 and PISA 2012. This shows that students have difficulty in comprehending the subjects in the mathematics curriculum. Therefore, learning experiences designed for the pupils to have rich mathematics experiences during elementary school is of higher importance. At this point, it is necessary to know the subjects that the pre-service teachers, who will be teachers of the future, are challenged in teaching mathematics. Therefore, the purpose of study is to determine the subjects in which elementary school pre-service teachers perceive teaching in elementary school mathematics as difficult and to examine the causes of these difficulties. The case study method is used in this study and the participants of the study are 120 pre-service classroom teachers who study in the fourth grade in a state university. Participants were administered a 19-item learning difficulty index covering mathematics learning areas of 1-4 grades (n = 120). The distribution of answers given by the pre-service teachers for each topic and the learning difficulty index for each topic were calculated. Interviews were done with the pre-service teachers in response to their responses to the questionnaire items to understand the causes of the difficulties. In interviews conducted one by one, the pre-service teachers were asked general mathematics lecture notes, mathematics fear level and the reasons for the topics they found difficult to teach.
Highlights
Mathematics is a language in which people can communicate with each other through various means
Mathematics includes basic skills and compulsory knowledge as well as some skills that must be acquired for individuals in general and it is difficult for a student experiencing a learning disability, especially in the mathematical context, to succeed in the issues [1,2]
In order to measure these skills, a study has been conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), under the name of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), evaluating the knowledge and skills gained by students aged 15 years for over three years
Summary
Mathematics is a language in which people can communicate with each other through various means. The basis for the achievement of these skills and the formation of mathematical identities begins from the very beginning of the educational life of individuals This stage for pupils at basic education level is of critical importance. Mathematics education studies have shown that the chosen approach and strategy, techniques and methods used in the learning-teaching process, classroom relations and the activities that are fostered have very different results in the acquisition of knowledge and skills of the students [6]. Identification and elimination of such situations, assisting and guiding the student in the learning process are among the primary tasks of the teacher In this context, it is necessary for the pre-service classroom teachers and classroom teachers to have pedagogical field knowledge in order to be able to carry out the curriculum effectively. The problematic sentence of the study is “What are the subjects that the pre-service classroom teachers perceive as difficult in elementary 1-4 grade mathematics curriculum?”
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