Investigating representations of ratio among prospective mathematics and science teachers : an International study

Abstract

The importance of teachers’ content knowledge for teaching is acknowledged as a factor of teacher quality in mathematics and science. At the 2011 annual conference of ATEE in Riga, the Science and Mathematics Education RDC initiated a study of our prospective teachers’ content knowledge of ratio for teaching mathematics and science using a grounded theory design. An analysis of the meanings and representations offered by the participants indicated emergent themes leading to the following conjectures. Participants who associated meanings that reflect two variables while providing many, varied, and relevant representations possessed relational understanding of ratio (Skemp 1976). The RDC proposes how further study with other participants will begin the process of establishing the validity of these conjectures.