Developing the Mathematical Misconception Awareness Scale for Primary School Teachers: A Reliability Study

Authors : Veli TOPTAŞ, Büşra USLUOĞLU

Pages : 122-134

View : 79 | Download : 57

Publication Date : 2023-08-31

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :One of the problems addressed in teaching mathematics is mathematical misconceptions. Errors and misconceptions that students develop in previous lessons or bring to school from the community they live in can create barriers to the continuous learning of mathematical concepts and ultimately lead to failure in mathematics. It is also important to see whether teachers\` misconceptions have any effect on students\` misconceptions. In this study, it was aimed to develop a scale in order to know the level of opinions of primary school teachers about misconceptions in mathematics and to measure whether they are aware of mathematical misconceptions. The 36-item draft scale, in which different dimensions were determined regarding mathematical misconceptions, was piloted with a total of 372 classroom teachers in the 2022-2023 academic year. After the results obtained from the pilot application and the opinions of the experts, 2 items were removed from the scale. The scale, which has 34 items in total, was applied to 524 primary school teachers. In the development of the measurement tool, the stages of literature review, item creation, content validity insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(referring to expert opinion);, pre-testing and validity and reliability calculation were followed. During the analysis made with a statistical program, it was determined that the scale consisted of 3 dimensions with Exploratory Factor Analysis insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(EFA);. The researchers named these dimensions as \`Mathematical Misconceptions Awareness in Learning-Teaching Processes\`, \`Misconceptions Specific to Mathematics Learning Fields\`, and \`Cognitive and Conceptual Awareness\`, respectively, after the common points of the questions in the dimensions formed and their exchange of views with the experts. In addition, it was observed that the KMO Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(Sampling Suitability Measurement); value was 0.97, and the internal consistency coefficient insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(Cronbachalpha); value calculated for the reliability study was α=0.97. With the findings obtained, it was concluded that the scale has a valid and reliable structure. The results obtained with the Confirmatory Factor Analysis insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(CFA); show that although they do not have perfect fit values, they are within acceptable limits.
Keywords : Kavram yanılgısı, Matematik, Matematiksel kavram yanılgısı, Sınıf öğretmeni

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