Pre-service Mathematics Teachers’ Understanding of Rate of Change Throughout a Model Development Sequence

This study examined a cohort of middle school pre-service mathematics teachers’ understanding of the rate of change as they engaged in a model development sequence. By adopting a design-based research perspective, a model development sequence on the concept of rate of change has been designed and im...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of science and mathematics education 2023-08, Vol.21 (6), p.1769-1796
Main Authors: Kertil, Mahmut, Erbas, Ayhan Kursat, Cetinkaya, Bulent
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Addition
Concept Formation
Context
Data analysis
Difficulty Level
Education
Knowledge Base for Teaching
Mathematical analysis
Mathematical Concepts
Mathematical Models
Mathematics
Mathematics Education
Mathematics Instruction
Mathematics Teachers
Middle School Mathematics
Middle schools
Multiplication
Population growth
Preservice Teachers
Science Education
Teachers
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This study examined a cohort of middle school pre-service mathematics teachers’ understanding of the rate of change as they engaged in a model development sequence. By adopting a design-based research perspective, a model development sequence on the concept of rate of change has been designed and implemented as part of a mathematical modeling course for pre-service teachers. The data were collected from twenty senior year middle school pre-service mathematics teachers (PSTs) through questionnaires, modeling activities, reflection papers, and semi-structured interviews. The data analysis showed that PSTs have difficulties conceptualizing the rate of change and conceiving it as a multiplicative comparison of changes in two covarying quantities. As they frequently employed its percentage interpretation, PSTs experienced additional difficulty conceiving the conventional meaning of rate of change in a population growth context. PSTs generally used motion context as a reference while explaining the rate of change in different non-motion contexts. In general, PSTs developed their conception of the additive rate of change throughout the model development sequence. However, for some PSTs, difficulty in ratio-based reasoning on the rate of change in different non-motion contexts prevailed. We provided some arguments concerning the teaching and learning of rate of change.
ISSN:1571-0068
1573-1774
DOI:10.1007/s10763-022-10324-z