Research Information System
Thesis Type: Doctorate
Institution Of The Thesis: Gazi Üniversitesi, Eğitim Bilimleri Enstitüsü, Turkey
Approval Date: 2015
Student: HATİCE AYDAN KAPLAN
Supervisor: ZİYA ARGÜN
Abstract:For an effective teaching it is essential to exert efforts to determine student thinking. These efforts require certain skills which are introduced in the literature as diagnostic competence. The main aim of this study is to determine the level of diagnostic competence of elementary mathematics teachers. Diagnostic competence of teachers which is described as understanding and analyzing student thinking was examined with 3 levels through considering, scrutinizing and predicting student thinking as well as their general knowledge on learning processes and skills of implementing such knowledge. The method of this study is based on a case study, which is one of the qualitative research design and the participants of this study consist of three elementary mathematics teachers. Lessons which were taught by these teachers were observed for 17 weeks and the data were collected by the ways: (1) observation notes, (2) video recordings, (3) written documents and (4) interviews with the teachers. The collected data were analyzed with both descriptive and content analyses. The findings of the study indicate that the diagnostic competence of the elementary mathematics teachers is at the first level due to the skill of scrutinizing and limitation of their general knowledge on learning processes and non-use of this knowledge. The other major findings include: (a) while participants were diagnosing the student thinking, they tend to focus more on the mistakes/errors made by the students and they did not feel necessity to diagnose the correct forms of student thinking. (b) Limitations of the general knowledge on learning processes caused the other skills of the diagnostic competence to remain weak. (c) The diagnostic competence of the participants in the classroom revealed as the first level and in the environments which prompts were used revealed as the second level.