Mathematical knowledge of students beginning their teacher education – Comparing the years 1992 and 2014

• Main Authors: Hreinsdóttir, Freyja, Diego, Fridrik
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Icelandic
• Published: Menntavísindasvið Háskóla Íslands 2019
• Subjects: Teacher education; mathematical knowledge; education of mathematics teachers; status test at the University of Iceland; Kennaranám; stærðfræðikunnátta kennaranema; menntun stærðfræðikennara; könnunarpróf við Háskóla Íslands; Iceland
• Online Access: https://ojs.hi.is/index.php/netla/article/view/2955

In 1992 a group of first year students at the University of Education (now the School of Education of the University of Iceland), took a pre-assessment in mathematics. In 2014, 22 years later, the exact same questionnaire was given to a group of students entering the Faculty of Teacher Education of the School of Education.The test consists of 30 questions or problems from standard school mathematics, involving numbers, calculations and algebra, e.g., the addition of fractions or the solution of a linear equation, problems from geometry, e.g., the estimation of the area of a square and a circle, a few problems from combinatorics, e.g., determining the number of games in a round-robin chess tournament and some word problems requiring relatively simple problem-solving skills. All the problems are multiple-choice with exactly one choice being correct.A primary purpose of this examination was the evaluation of the mathematical skills of the students in question, when starting their Teacher Education program. Secondly, with two similar groups of students and questions being the same in both cases, a comparison of results from 1992 and 2014 seemed a highly interesting objective. Thirdly, a consideration of the results could offer indications for anyone involved in the planning of teacher education.Over the past decades, programs at the School of Education have frequently been revised, perhaps the greatest single change being the step from a three-year teacher education to the present five-year system. As for mathematics and mathematics education in the programs, such courses have generally amounted to 3-4% of study units so the mathematical background of most primary school teachers is more or less their background from studies before entering the School of Education. Studies and tests at the School of Education and the School of Engineering and Natural Sciences suggest that the mathematical skill and success of university students depends on previous studies, a determining factor being the number of mathematics ...