Pose, solve and pose cycle: an examination on the change of pre-service mathematics teachers’ problem-posing performances

Abstract

Abstract We designed a programme consisting of initial problem posing related to a problem about oil drums, teaching activities to solve the problem and further problem posing to investigate the change in pre-service mathematics teachers’ problem-posing performances and the potential role of teaching activities in these performances. The participants’ problem-posing fluency and flexibility scores showed statistically significant improvement over the course of the cycle. Although there was an improvement in problem-posing rarity scores, it was not statistically significant. Understanding the visual model and discovering the geometric properties of the problem were identified as categories that were effective in improving the participants’ performances.