LEARNING TO UNDERSTAND INCLUSION RELATIONS OF QUADRILATERALS

Abstract

Learning to identify geometric shapes and understand inclusive properties among these shapes is prerequisite for learning more complex concepts such as spatial reasoning or deductive thinking. Despite the importance of understanding geometric shapes and inclusion relations among these shapes, it has evidenced that pre-service teachers’ subject knowledge of geometry is amongst their weakest knowledge of mathematics.This study aimed to investigate pre-service mathematics teachers’ (PSMT), who are going to teach middle grade mathematics (grade 5-8), understanding of inclusion relationships of quadrilaterals. A designed questionnaire was administered to 52 PSMTs at the beginning of the semester and again by the end of the semester. The findings of this study demonstrated that the majority of the PSMTs struggled with identifying quadrilaterals and especially inclusion relations of quadrilaterals primarily. The majority of them held static view of quadrilaterals which inhibited their understanding of inclusion relations of quadrilaterals. However, the number of the PSMTs who understood hierarchical relationship between quadrilaterals increased through the end of the semester.