Geometric Thinking of Future Teachers for Primary Education—An Exploratory Study in Slovakia

Abstract

Various studies show that the level of knowledge achieved by pupils is influenced by the level of knowledge of their teachers. In this article, we focus on geometric thinking and the solutions for geometric tasks through a study of future teachers of primary education. The research sample consisted of 59 master’s students from the Teacher Training for Primary Education (TTPE) program. To determine the level of geometric thinking of TTPE students, the van Hiele geometric test was used. Two geometric multi-item tasks were proposed and the students’ solutions to these tasks were quantitatively and qualitatively evaluated. The main goal was to analyze students’ misconceptions while solving tasks and to compare and reveal the connections between their solutions and their achieved level of geometric thinking. A statistical implicative analysis was used for a deeper analysis, namely the statistical software C.H.I.C. The research findings show that more than 40% of TTPE students in the research sample did not reach the required level of geometric thinking. The achieved level of the geometric thinking of students is also influenced by the type of high school education. We observed problems with understanding the concept of the triangle and square in TTPE students. The connections between the solutions of two geometric tasks and the achieved level of geometric thinking were also revealed.