Article
Preservice Elementary Teachers' Understanding of Relational Thinking
AERA Annual Meeting
(2011)
Abstract
The goal of this study was to examine two issues: First, pre-service teachers’ ability and
inclination to think relationally prior to instruction about the role relational thinking plays in the
K-8 mathematics curriculum. Second, to examine task specific variables possibly associated with
pre-service teachers’ inclination to engage in relational thinking. The results revealed that preservice
teachers engage in relational thinking about equality, however, their inclination to do so
is rather limited. Furthermore, they tend to engage in relational thinking more frequently in the
context of arithmetic than algebra-related tasks. Pre-service teachers’ inclination to engage in
relational thinking appeared to also relate to the overall task complexity and the use of variables.
Implications of these findings for pre-service teacher education are provided.
Keywords
- Relational thinking,
- early algebra Instruction,
- pre-service teacher preparation
Disciplines
Publication Date
April, 2011
Citation Information
Magiera, M. T., van den Kieboom, L., & Moyer, J. (2011, April). Pre-Service K-8 Teachers’ Understanding of Relational Thinking. Paper presented at the 2011 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. New Orleans, Louisiana. Retrieved from the AERA Online Paper Repository http://www.aera.net/repository.