Development of visual mathematics literacy scale towards elementary school mathematics teacher candidates and investigation of the relationship between success in geometry and visual mathematics literacy

In the first phase of this study, we aimed to develop a 5 part likert-type scale, in order to determine the visual mathematics literacy levels of elementary school mathematics teacher candidates. In the second stage, we aimed to determine the level of visual mathematics literacy of teacher candidates, and to investigate the relationship between visual mathematics literacy and success in geometry. In addition, we also investigated the answer to the question "on what level does the visual literacy of mathematics predict the success in geometry?". At first, we did a literature scan and referred to expert opinions, and formed a 60 clause scale pool form, and after necessary corrections were made on this form, we obtained a draft scale form with 54 clauses. We applied this draft scale to 325 elementary school mathematics teacher candidates, and with the data obtained, we did the factor analysis of the scale. As a result of this factor analysis, we took 17 clauses out of the scale, and created the final scale with 37 clauses. As a result of this factor analysis, we found out that the factor structure of the scale consists of mutually matching clauses. In order to determine the geometry achievement levels of students, we prepared a geometry achievement test with 20 questions, benefiting from the geometry questions that were included in the Academic Personnel and Postgraduate Education Entrance Exams (ALES) that were held in between 2010 and 2014, by the Student Selection and Placement Center (ÖSYM). The internal reliability coefficient of the test (KR-20) was calculated to be 0.794. We then applied the final visual mathematics literacy scale with 37 clauses and geometry success test, to 232 elementary school teacher candidates that continue to their studies in Fırat University Faculty of Education. These applications showed that student geometry success rates are in intermediate levels, and visual mathematics literacy rates are over upper-intermediate levels. Also, we determined that there is a positive but low level relationship between the students' mathematics literacy levels and their success rates in geometry. We also tried to find out the level of prediction of the success in geometry of the visual mathematics literacy, and observed that 3.6% of the geometry success was able to be predicted (explained) by visual mathematics literacy. This data shows that there is a low level of prediction of visual mathematics literacy over the success in geometry. What supports this data is the fact that even with an intermediate level of success in geometry, visual mathematics literacy can be in an upper-intermediate level. Key Words: Elementary school mathematics teachers, success in geometry, visual mathematics literacy, mathematics literacy, scale development.