@bogazici.edu.tr
Mathematics and Science Education
Boğaziçi University
Education
Scopus Publications
Muhammet Arican
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Muhammet Arican, Lieven Verschaffel, and Wim Van Dooren
Informa UK Limited
Muhammet Arican and Bilal Özçakir
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Yusuf Ziya Olpak and Muhammet Arican
Elsevier BV
Muhammet Arican and Okan Kuzu
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Okan KUZU and Muhammet ARICAN
Egitimde ve Psikolojide Olcme ve Degerlendirme Dergisi
In this study, probabilities of preservice middle school mathematics teachers’ possession of four fundamental cognitive skills required for learning and teaching statistics and probability topics were examined by using the log-linear cognitive diagnostic model, which is one of the cognitive diagnostic models. Moreover, the probabilities of preservice teachers’ possession of these skills were investigated according to gender, university ranking, and grade level variables. Hence, it was examined whether there was a significant relationship between the probabilities of having each skill and these variables. A Statistical Reasoning Test, which was developed by Arican and Kuzu in 2019, measured preservice teachers’ possession of four critical skills was used in collecting the data. These four skills included representing and interpreting data, drawing inferences about populations based on samples, selecting and using appropriate statistical methods to analyze data, and understanding and applying basic concepts of probability. In the 2016-2017 academic year, the test was applied to 456 preservice teachers selected from four different universities in Turkey, and probabilities of their possession of each attribute were calculated. Later, the relationship between the preservice teachers’ test scores and gender was examined by using the Mann-Whitney U test, and the relationship between their test scores and ranking of the attended university and grade level were examined using the Kruskal Wallis-H test. Although probabilities of the preservice teachers’ possession of these four skills did not significantly differ according to gender, some significant differences were detected for university ranking and grade level variables.
Muhammet Arican
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Yusuf Ziya Olpak, Serdal Baltaci, and Muhammet Arican
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Muhammet Arican
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Muhammet Arican, Oguz Koklu, Ibrahim Burak Olmez, and Serdal Baltaci
ISTES Organization
Proportional relationships and geometric similarity are two of the critical topics in school mathematics. Students and even teachers often struggle with recognizing the proportional relationships in geometric similarity problems. The purpose of this study was to investigate preservice middle-grades mathematics teachers’ (PSTs) strategies when solving geometric similarity problems. Furthermore, we also examined the influence of the problem characteristics on the PSTs’ solution strategies. The data for the present study came from 32 PSTs’ responses to a geometric similarity test consisting of five problems and individual semi-structured interviews with three of these PSTs. The results revealed that the PSTs used a limited number of strategies when solving the similarity problems and usually relied on the cross-multiplication strategy in their solutions. Only a few PSTs were able to explain proportional relationships between corresponding sides of the geometric figures in the given problems. The PSTs’ overreliance on the cross-multiplication strategy appeared to constrain their identification of proportional relationships. Based on the results of the present study, we propose the use of dilating perspective, a dynamic dilation-oriented method that promotes side-by-side comparison of similar figures in teaching geometric similarity.