Pre-Service Elementary Teachers’ Knowledge of Linear Function and Slope

Abstract

It is important for all school-aged students to learn algebra, including the ability to generalize and to This study aimed to investigate pre-service elementary teachers’ performance and understanding of slope and linear function. Pre-service elementary teachers’ content, knowledge, and perceptions about representations of linear functions are a major factor that affects students’ concept building and learning processes. This study reports pre-service elementary teachers’ misconceptions and limited understanding of linear functions and slope. The findings intended to pinpoint the participating pre-service elementary teachers’ knowledge regarding linear function and slope. Forty-three pre-service elementary teachers in South Minnesota participated for Diagnostic Test (DT). The DT included six categories as determine the slope, determine points on the linear function, find linear function by using points, determine linear function with perpendicular line, determine linear function with parallel line, and understand properties of linear function and slope. Thirteen items were compiled into six categories with distinctive attributes in relation to linear function and slope. Derived from the DT, average number of items correctly answered by pre-service elementary teachers is 5.53; the percentage of correctly responses is 42.53%. In this study, a passing benchmark of 70% was considered to assess participants’ content competency as a qualified elementary teacher’s licensure for Minnesota Essential Academic Skills with Math. When 70% (9 items) of correctness was used as the passing rate of this instrument, only 11.6% of the pre-service teachers reached that standard. Overall, the pre-service elementary teachers performed rather inadequately on the DT. The data shows that the percent of correct response of determining linear function with perpendicular line 10.47%, determining linear function with parallel line 20.07% of DT was relatively low when compared with find linear function by using points 60.46%, understand properties of linear function and slope 53.37%. The findings of study suggest that pre-service elementary teachers exhibit difficulties with transformation between graphical and algebraic representations of slopes that may be indicative of a lack of conceptual understanding of the meaning and properties of slope. The data also reveals that pre-service teachers had difficulties with determining linear function with perpendicular line, determining linear function with parallel lines, and understand properties of linear functions. The results suggested that the participating teacher candidates possessed a poor understanding of content knowledge in this significant content area, which may point to unsuccessful performance on the upcoming certification test and in subsequent teaching practice.