Abstract:

This paper investigates Turkish mathematics teachers’, who teach in middle school, mathematical knowledge for teaching in geometry. Like any other part of the world, Turkey has been spending time and effort to improve students’ learning and teachers’ teaching quality. However, for the past 20 years, there seems no significant improvement in student success in mathematics according to international assessments of student achievement in mathematics and science projects (e.g. TIMSS). Students’ mathematics success heavily depends on their learning activities. Teachers have the most important role in creating and organizing those learning activities. Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT) is a teacher knowledge framework that holds the key elements for a quality mathematics teaching.

In this study, we adapted the geometry items of Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT) Measures, which are the product of Learning Mathematics for Teaching (LMT) Project, to function in Turkey. MKT items were developed in order to study U.S. mathematics teachers’ knowledge specifically used in their teaching practices. However, careful adaptation process has been held by conducting focus group meetings and carrying out a pilot test. After that, we conducted MKT items to 243 middle school mathematics teachers from 25 middle schools in Gaziantep city. Lastly, we compared the U.S. mathematics teachers’ success with Turkish teachers’ success in terms of MKT geometry items.

The data were analyzed by Item Response Theory using BILOG MG-3 program. The results showed that Turkish middle school mathematics teachers have a good performance at MKT geometry items. In addition, Turkish teachers found the items easier than U.S. teachers did. On the other hand, we have to say there are some limitations of our conclusions and that additional information is needed for a full understanding of difference between U.S and Turkey’s mathematics teachers’ mathematical knowledge used in teaching.

Keywords:

Mathematical knowledge for teaching, mathematics teachers, measurement of teachers' knowledge.