Abstract:

Teacher training deserves an increased attention outlook by providing knowledge and developing skills, which allow the students to answer properly to the requirements of a quality education, a XXI century education. The purpose of this research was to, firstly, discover the opinion of final year students of the Masters Degree in teaching the 1st and 2nd Cycles of Basic Education* at a university in the north of Portugal about the academic education received, and secondly, to analyse the adequacy of this formation in carrying out the professional internship in the area of mathematics. The methodology adopted was qualitative following a case study design, and the data collection instrument was a questionnaire survey applied in the end of the academic years 2015/16 and 2016/17. Data analysis was focused on the students' responses to the surveys implemented using content analysis through the formulation of categories regarding some questions included in the questionnaires.

The results show us that all students consider the scientific formation they received in the area of mathematics during their degree in Basic Education, as well as in the Masters Degree, appropriate to the needs of intervention along the professional internship. In addition, this study allowed us to identify other disciplinary areas that contributed greatly to the construction of the students' training profile.

While mentors of these students, this investigation provided us with a set of very important guidelines that we intend to integrate into our teaching practice in order to improve integral training of our future Mathematics teachers in the 1st and 2nd Cycles of Basic Education.

*In the Portuguese education system:
- 1st Cycle of Basic Education - 6 to 10 year-olds;
- 2nd Cycle of Basic Education - 11 to 12 year-olds

Keywords:

Mathematics, Professional internship, mathematics teaching, 1st Basic Education, 2nd Basic Education.