Capturing prospective teachers' beliefs about mathematical problem solving

Abstract

Beliefs about problem solving are very important because they form the basis for learning mathematics. This research describes beliefs of prospective mathematics teachers toward mathematical problem solving. Participants of this research consisted of 157 prospective mathematics teachers at a private University in Semarang. Participants have sufficient background in the field of mathematics and pedagogy study in learning. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and beliefs questionnaire on problem solving with answer choices. Questionnaire we used was to investigate the beliefs of prospective teachers about mathematical problem solving, while the interview process that we used was to obtain qualitative data. Based on the results of the questionnaire, each one of the prospective teacher students who had instrumentalist, platonic and constructivist beliefs was interviewed for their beliefs in mathematical problems, problem solving and problem solving processes. The results of the research show that most of prospective teacher tended to have platonist beliefs in every statement of mathematical problems and mathematical problem solving. But on the statement of the problem solving process, the most of prospective teachers tended to have constructivist beliefs. The belief perspective is built to help teachers understand and develop mathematical knowledge needed in solving mathematical problems.