Examınatıon of the mıddle school mathematıcs teacher's approaches related to new generatıon's mathematıcs qeestıons

With the changed examination system in 2018, we come up to High school entrance exam (LGS) and skill based questions involved to the exam content. However, this type of questions are described as skill based questions, it is seen that to public opinion, these questions are predominantly described as "new generation mathematic questions". Therefore, in this study, these questions are named with it's common usage ; " new generation mathematic questions". The aim of this study is to examine middle school mathematics teachers' approaches to new generation mathematics questions. For this purpose, the data collection tool, which includes six open-ended questions, was created by the researcher and a field expert by taking the expert opinion. The participant group of the study consists of 208 middle school mathematics teachers working in the middle schools, which are affiliated to the Ministry of National Education, in Gaziantep city center, districts and villages in 2019-2020 academic year. Participants are determined on the basis of easy accessibility and volunteerism. The data collection tool was sent to the mathematic teachers' whatsapp groups via Google form, and the participants were asked to answer the data collection tool.The research was designed with qualitative descriptive, and the data obtained from the research were subjected to content analysis, so that codes and categories were formed. The created code and categories are presented in tables and interpreted. As a result of the research, focusing on the external appearance of the questions, some of the teachers conceptualized the questions structurally but the participants focusing on the content of the questions predominantly conceptualized as skills-based questions that enable conceptual and procedural learning. However, focusing on the difficulty of the questions, some of the participants defined the questions as difficult questions. On the other hand, it was strongly emphasized that new generation mathematics questions improve students' skills and brings students mathematical skills. In addition, it was concluded that the new generation mathematics questions enable effective mathematics teaching within the scope of the study. On the other hand, it was observed that teachers could not adequately include new generation mathematics questions in their lessons because of the anxiety of completing the curriculum, time problems, student level and insufficient educational opportunities. Finally, it was observed that the new generation mathematics questions were regarded by teachers as distinctive questions and the questions were quite effective in distinguishing skilled students and students with high academic success. These remarks reflected in the statements of the participants.