Investigating Problems Posed by Pre-Service Mathematics Teachers for the Four Operations in Fractions

Abstract

This study investigates 40 preservice middle school teachers’ problems posed for two given fractions. Pre-service teachers were asked to pose three problems (farea, length and set model) for each of the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division with these fractions. 12 problems posed by each pre-service teacher were examined in terms of their suitability for the given operation, the targeted model and real life relevance. Errors in the posed problems were also examined. As a result of the analysis, it was observed that the model in which pre-service teachers were the most unsuccessful in posing problems was the set model, and the model in which they were most successful was the length model. Many types of errors were encountered in the problems posed by the pre-service teachers. It has been observed that many errors exist together, especially in the problems posed for the set model.