Investigation of prospective science teacher`s mathematical sufficiency in function concept context and their to apply their mathematical knowledge in this context in solving science problems

vABSTRACTINVESTIGATION OF PROSPECTIVE SCIENCE TEACHERS?MATHEMATICAL SUFFICIENCY IN FUNCTION CONCEPT CONTEXTAND THEIR ABILITY TO APPLY THEIR MATHEMATICALKNOWLEDGE IN THIS CONTEXT IN SOLVING SCIENCE PROBLEMS(MS Thesis)M. Yıldırım SARIKAYAGAZI UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION SCIENCESMarch 2005Functions are undoubtedly one of the most common models to represent andsolve both pure and applied problems in mathematics. In this context, functions areone of the tools, commonly employed to solve science problems. However, thestudies have revealed that students have many difficulties to learn function concept.The purpose of this study is to test prospective science teachers?mathematical sufficiency in the context of function and using their relatedmathematical knowledge to solve science problems.The ultimate goal of this study is to show the way to develop the curriculumof science and mathematics in pre-university education and enable mathematics andscience education in universities to be carried out in an effective manner.In this study, the sample consisted of 390 third and fourth year students atDepartments of Science Education, Gazi Education Faculty in Gazi University,Education Faculty in Hacettepe University and Education Faculty in Middle EastTechnical University. The study was conducted in the autumn term of 2003-2004academic year. The data was collected in two months period.The data was collected by using two measurement instruments: MathematicsKnowledge Test (Test B) and Mathematics Test in Science (Test A). MathematicsviKnowledge Test (Test B) consisted of five open-ended pure mathematics questionsin the context of the function. Mathematics Test in Science (Test A) also consisted offive open-ended science questions in the same context. The questions with the samenumber of each of the tests were one to one related to each other. The questions ofthe tests were prepared taking the students? knowledge level in the present time intoaccount. The prospective teachers were first subjected to Mathematics Test inScience (Test A). The allocated time for the whole test was 60 minutes. MathematicsKnowledge Test (Test B) was given later and the allocated time of the test was 30minutes. The prospective teachers? scores obtained from each test were computed byassigning 20 points for each question.In order to test the hypothesises of the study, independent samples t-test andone-way Anova tests were employed. The results of the analysis revealed that therewas not a significant difference between class levels of the prospective teachers andtheir scores in each of the tests for the hypothesis 1 and 2. However, for thehypothesis 3 and 4, there was a significant difference in scores of both of these testsbetween different universities. The analysis results again showed that there was asignificant difference between the prospective science teachers? scores inMathematics Knowledge Test (Test B) and Mathematics Test in Science (Test A),against Mathematics Test in Science (Test A), for the hypothesis 5.In the light of the findings of this study, it is proposed that science andmathematics should be conducted in cooperation with both pre-university anduniversity education.Key Words: Mathematics Education, Science Education, Mathematics inScience, Functions, Prospective Science TeachersNumber of Pages: 143Adviser: Asst. Prof. Dr. Dursun Soylu