Abstract:

The purpose of the study is to determine preschool teachers' perspectives on virtual and concrete manipulatives in mathematics teaching and their use in their classrooms. For this purpose, scanning model was preferred and data were collected from 324 preschool teachers working in various provinces through questionnaires. Then, 30 preschool teachers were interviewed. In the analysis of the data, descriptive analysis was used in the analysis of the answers obtained through the semi-structured interview form, and the frequency and percentage distributions and arithmetic averages were calculated for the data in the questionnaire. According to the findings, there were 32 manipulative materials in pre-school classes on average. Materials from geometry and number-operation sub-dimensions are mostly included in the classrooms. The majority of teachers defined manipulatives by emphasizing the qualities of "concrete" and "learning by doing". While the teachers agreed on the inclusion of concrete manipulatives in the teaching process, some teachers stated that virtual manipulatives could not be as effective as concrete manipulatives in terms of touching and manipulating. In addition, preschool teachers considered concrete manipulatives more appropriate than virtual manipulatives in terms of mathematics education. As a result, the teachers were aware of the contribution of manipulatives in mathematics education, but there was not enough manipulative in the classrooms. They need to more information about nature and using virtual manipulatives in math education.

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