Author(s): Tangül KABAEL Ayça AKIN Betül BARUT
Problem-solving has an important place in middle-school mathematics. Mathematics teachers play a significant role in improving problem-solving skills of the students. The purpose of the study is to investigate the questioning skills of pre-service middleschool mathematics teachers in the problem-solving processes of sixth grade students. Fourteen volunteer pre-service middle-school mathematics teachers in the third year of the undergraduate program participated in the study. The participants conducted clinical interviews with one sixth grade student in the scope of provided mathematics problem. The results indicated that most of the participants could not use appropriate questioning considering the phases of problem-solving process. Moreover, these pre-service teachers focused on the solution of the problem and they ignored especially the phases of understanding the problem and developing a plan regarding the problem. Only four of the pre-service teachers were able to support mental process of students in problem-solving via their questioning. The results revealed that enabling students to construct quantitative relationships depends on pre-service teachers’ appropriate questioning. Therefore, it is suggested that specific courses developing both the problem-solving and questioning skills of pre-service teachers should be integrated into the mathematics teacher education programs.
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