Abstract:

Purpose of this study is to determine problem solving skills of primary mathematics preservice teachers in mathematics teaching. This research was carried out with the 3rd year students studying in the department of elementary mathematics teaching at Samsun Ondokuz Mayıs University. Research method was determined as case study, one of the qualitative methods. In the study, the students were taught for 13 weeks (39 hours) Polya’s (1945) problem solving stages that are composed of 4 stages and the problem solving stages were introduced in order to improve their problem solving skills. In the research, two problems developed by Posamentier and Krulik (1998) and semi-structured interview form developed by the researcher were used as data collection tools. In the analysis of the data, solutions of the problems applied were examined considering Polya’s (1945) problem solving steps. The findings obtained via the solutions of applied problems and via the semi-structured interview form were established with the percentage and frequency values. As a result, it became evident that subject of problem solving has a positive effect on the development of mathematics teachers’ problem solving skills.

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