Primary and Pre-School Education students' opinions about mathematics and their teaching at kindergarten

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Published: Jul 1, 2007
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/icw.18221
Keywords:
mathematics teaching prospective educators opinions mathematics at kindergarten
Δέσποινα Δεσλή (Despina Desli)
School of Education Sciences in Pre-School Age, Democritus University of Thrace
Ειρήνη Παπαχρήστου (Irini Papaxristou)
School of Education Sciences in Pre-School Age, Democritus University of Thrace
Abstract

The aim of the present study is to investigate how students from Primary and Pre-School Education Departments view the teaching of mathematics. For this purpose a study was carried out in which 173 students from the two Education Departments in Democritus University of Thrace were asked to fill in a questionnaire with groups of questions about: a) their attitude towards mathematics, b) their opinions about teaching mathematics at school context, and c) their opinions about teaching mathematics at kindergarten. It was found that, although the prospective teachers have mixed feelings about mathematics, they all have clearly positive attitudes towards mathematics teaching at the kindergarten level. They believe that mathematics teaching at school offers them the opportunity to develop young children's positive relationship with mathematics. Finally, mathematics teaching at kindergarten was considered to differ from mathematics teaching in the primary school. The educational implications of the results are discussed.

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