Primary Teacher Students’ Understanding of Fraction Representational Knowledge in Slovenia and Kosovo

Abstract

The study of primary teacher students’ knowledge of fractions is very important because fractions present a principal and highly complex set of concepts and skills within mathematics. The present study examines primary teacher students’ knowledge of fraction representations in Slovenia and Kosovo. According to research, there are five subconstructs of fractions: the part-whole subconstruct, the measure subconstruct, the quotient subconstruct, the operator subconstruct and the ratio subconstruct. Our research focused on the part-whole and the measure subconstructs of fractions, creating nine tasks that were represented by different modes of representation: area/region, number line and sets of objects. The sample consisted of 76 primary teacher students in Slovenia and 93 primary teacher students in Kosovo. Both similarities and differences of the primary teacher students’ interpretations of the representations across the two countries were revealed and compared. The findings suggest that primary teacher students from both countries need to upgrade their understanding of fractions. The analysis confirms that the formal mathematical knowledge acquired by primary teacher students is not necessarily adequate for teaching elementary concepts in school.