PRIMARY SCHOOL PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS’ SUBJECT MATTER KNOWLEDGE OF MATHEMATICS FOR TEACHING MULTIPLICATION AND ADDITION OF FRACTIONS

Many researchers and education stakeholders in South Africa point to the need to develop teachers’ mathematical knowledge of the mathematics concepts that they teach to their learners. In this research the researchers explore the understanding of 60 pre-service primary mathematics teachers on multiplication and addition of fractions. Data were generated from the written responses to an assessment as well as semi-structured interviews. The written responses and interviews were analysed using content analysis. The purpose was to explore the methods used by pre-service primary mathematics teachers to solve a given task on multiplication and addition of fraction. Emphasis was also based on whether the pre-service primary mathematics teachers were able to use different methods to solve the given task. The results showed that 46 participants were able to solve the task using one method, while 20 of them were able to use two different methods. The most common method used was based on the part-whole relationship method. Few students identified different other methods of solving the task correctly but some of them were unable to use any method. These results indicate that these students are not yet ready to teach these primary school level concepts even though they have studied advanced mathematics topics as part of their pre-service training. The study recommends that pre-service primary mathematics teachers should also be provided with more structured opportunities to help develop pedagogic content knowledge of the primary school level content as part of their teacher training programme as well as possess a deep understanding of different interpretations of fractions