The investigation of teacher candidates' academic performance and thoughts toward mental computation skills

The purpose of this study is to develop an education for development of teacher candidates mental computation skills who are 3rd year students of classroom teachers, to measure efficiency of this education, and to determine teacher candidates thoughts towards mental computation skills. This study is developed using one group pre-post test weak experimental design. A program containing mental computation strategies over two week is prepared. Experimental group contains 27 girls and 19 boys teacher candidates that take Math education 2 course at Ege university education faculty 2014-1015 academic year spring semester mental computation skills. "Education for development of teacher candidates" mental computation skills was applied by researcher under the supervision of her advisor Validity and reliability tested "Mental Computation Scale is developed to determine teacher candidates attitudes. Mental computation academic performance test is developed to examine the differences after application of education program. "Mental Computation Scale" and "Mental computation academic performance test" is utilized as pre and post-test. t-test is utilized to examine the correlation and the data are analyzed .05 meaningful levels. Teacher thoughts towards applied education was asked and recorded. According to research result, "education for development of teacher candidates mental computation skills" was affected their thoughts positively. Statistical differences observed between pre- and post-test result of "mental computation skills scale" and "mental computation academic performance test". Different ideas were expressed during interview. Candidates stated that the education process is productive, they did not like the education process and they liked the process but methods were unnecessary.