• The Mathematical Education
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.291-310
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• 2008

This article is based on an international collaborative study that aimed to investigate mathematical preparation of prospective elementary teachers in several selected education systems in East Asia. This article reports the Korean portion of the study. A survey instrument was developed to explore not only prospective teachers' knowledge of elementary mathematics curriculum and their beliefs in their preparation and mathematics instruction but also their subject matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge on the topic of fraction division. A total of 291 seniors in 3 universities participated in the survey. The results reveal these prospective teachers' strengths and weaknesses with regard to their knowledge of fraction division, and suggest that content-specific pedagogical knowledge needs to be emphasized in the teacher preparation program.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.351-363
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• 2015

In this study, 45 pre-service mathematics teachers were surveyed about how the perception of knowledge through teaching practicum have changed and how the knowledge learned in college and teaching practicum helped to format teachers' knowledge and analyzed survey's result. Pre-service mathematics teachers felt the knowledge for understanding students were needed the most and considered the experiences from teaching practicum were more useful than the knowledge learned from college classes. However, they had low appreciations on connecting knowledge on learned contents with real-life or other subjects and on necessity of knowledge of using various learning tools or mathematical materials in class. Also, they have answered the knowledges from college classes and teaching practicum were useless in those areas. Especially, they pointed out that guidance teachers during teaching practicum were insufficient in instructing. Therefore, we suggest the following two to improve the teaching ability of pre-service mathematics teachers through teaching practicum. First, college and secondary school cooperating programs such as class-observation and student-mentor system connected with local society should be developed. Second, the special re-training program for guidance teachers of teaching practicum is needed.

• East Asian mathematical journal
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.141-166
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• 2023

The purpose of this study is to confirm the MKT(Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching) of the in-service mathematics teachers on the statistics(Representative value, Degree of scattering) through the comparative analysis between the sub-elements of the MKT. In addition, it is to examine the factors that cause the difference of the subjects' MKT. To accomplish this, by the subject of 12 secondary in-service mathematics teachers, in this study the test items of the MKT on the statistics were developed and data were collected and analyzed. As a result of the analysis of the MKT test sheet, the CCK(Common Content Knowledge) and SCK(Specialized Content Knowledge) of the mathematics teacher was confirmed as a high score, whereas the and KCS(Knowledge of Content and Students) and KCT(Knowldge of Curriculum and teaching) were confirmed as low scores. In addition, through these results, it was shown that the difference in MKT's elements the middle school and high school teachers obtain occurred slightly.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.129-148
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• 2014

In this study, we examined the relationships among years of teaching experience, professional rank, number of courses taken, and knowledge of algebra for teaching (KAT). 338 in-service and 376 pre-service secondary mathematics teachers in China completed a KAT questionnaire. Various statistical techniques were employed to examine these relationships. The pre-service participants teachers performed statistically significantly higher in advanced mathematics knowledge than their in-service counterparts. Among the inservice teachers, senior teachers had scored higher in school mathematics and teaching mathematics, compared with junior teachers. Yet participants' advanced mathematics knowledge decreased as their professional rank advanced or their teaching experience increased. The number of courses taken has significantly positive correlation with school mathematics knowledge and advanced mathematics knowledge. The implications of these findings for mathematics teacher education are discussed.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.1-28
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• 2002

This study explored teachers (n = 219) from northern, central, southern and eastern Taiwan concerning their views about children's learning difficulties, mathematical instruction and school mathematics curricular. Results showed that teachers' mathematics knowledge or their instruction methods had no significant influence on their views of children's learning difficulties. Even though teachers indicated that understanding of abstract mathematical concepts was the most prominent difficulty for children, they tended to employ direct instruction rather than constructive and cooperative problem solving in their teaching. However, teachers' views of children's learning difficulties did influence their instructional practice. Results from in-dept interviews revealed that there were some obstacles that prevented teachers from putting constructiveism perspectives of instruction into teaching practice. Further investigation is needed to develop a better understanding of epistemology and teaming psychology as well as to help teachers create constructive learning situations.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.45 no.4 s.115
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• pp.381-406
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• 2006

This work aims to investigate mathematics teachers' knowledge and belief on the high school probability and statistics. For this aim, two research questions are estabilished as follows. (1) How is mathematics teachers' knowledge on the main contents of the high school probability and statistics in the 7th mathematics curriculum? (2) What is mathematics teachers' belief on the high school probability and statistics? Survey and interviews were carried out to answer the above research questions. Subjects of the survey were 2 7mathematics teachers who were answered to questionnaire. Among them, 3 volunteers were chosen by provinces for in-depth interview. Research findings in mathematics teacher's knowledge are as follows. Firstly, mathematics teachers do not have much of mathematical knowledge on the newly added and changed contents of the high school probability and statistics in the 7th mathematics curriculum. Secondly, mathematics teachers do not change their teaching-learning method for probability and statistics. Thirdly, many teachers think that the use of technology and reconstruction of the textbooks are required in teaching and learning of the high school probability and statistics. But, they stick on their own way. Research findings in mathematics teachers' belief are as follows. Firstly, many mathematics teachers view the nature of statistics as a branch of the applied mathematics and put the value of high school probability and statistics on the practical usefulness, Secondly, many mathematics teachers think that understanding concepts and improving problem solving ability are the best method of the teaching and learning. Thirdly, many mathematics teachers think that high school probability and statistics textbooks should cause motivations and interests in order not to give up studying probability and statistics. It is expected that the above findings can be used to change teachers' teaching and learning methods and to improve teachers training program.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.207-222
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• 2015

Mathematics preservice teachers' Mathematical Content Knowledge ("MCK") includes not only knowledge for mathematics, but also academic knowledge for school mathematics and mathematical process knowledge. We can consider the items in PISA 2012 as suitable tools to assess process knowledge as well as mathematical content knowledge because these items are developed by competent international educational experts. Therefore, the responses to items with the low percentage of correct answers in conjunction with the mathematical contents were analyzed with focus on FMC. The results showed the reasoning competency in responses using the conditions of the problem and of understanding the conditions after reading the complex problems within the context (i.e. the reasoning and argumentation competency, and communication competency) requires improvements. Furthermore the results indicated the errors due to a lack of ability of devising strategies for problem solving. Based on the foregoing results, the implications towards the directions of the education for the preservice mathematics teachers have been derived.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.691-715
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• 2015

This study explored preservice secondary mathematics teachers' mathematical knowledge for teaching [MKT]. In order to measure preservice teachers' MKT, we developed items according to Ball, Thames & Phelps (2008)'s domains and conducted to 53 preservice teachers. Also, we interviewed 1 preservice teacher with the items and a set of interview questions. The findings from the data analysis suggested as follows: a) overall, the preservice teachers scored average 30.2 out of 100; b) the preservice teachers appeared to be unable to explain students' difficulties in learning a specific mathematical idea and how they would respond to and resolve such difficulties.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.81-93
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• 2004

This study investigated three preservice teachers' mathematical problem solving among hand-in-write-ups and final projects for each subject. All participants' activities and computer explorations were observed and video taped. If it was possible, an open-ended individual interview was performed before, during, and after each exploration. The method of data collection was observation, interviewing, field notes, students' written assignments, computer works, and audio and videotapes of preservice teachers' mathematical problem solving activities. At the beginning of the mathematical problem solving activities, all participants did not have strong procedural and conceptual knowledge of the graph, making a model by using data, and general concept of a sine function, but they built strong procedural and conceptual knowledge and connected them appropriately through mathematical problem solving activities by using the computer technology.

• School Mathematics
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.533-550
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• 2013

Teachers' mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT) strongly influence student achievement (Hill, Rowan, & Ball, 2005). However, there is generally no record that shows the levels of teachers' MKT in schools and districts. Because of the limited resources, schools and districts need some criteria to decide how to distribute their resources to help teachers improve MKT. This study explores what factors in teachers' backgrounds are related to their levels of MKT. This article examines the relationships between the MKT of 336 elementary teachers and their demographic, educational, and teaching backgrounds. To measure MKT, I used a series of multiple-choice problems. The number of years teaching mathematics is not critical to these measures. Implications are discussed with regard to policy for mathematics teacher education.