Abstract:

The purpose of this study is to determine preservice teachers' levels of understanding (error reproduction) and analyzing (dept of analysis) the errors about place values and numeration systems and their use of descriptive language according to their gender. This study was designed as a descriptive survey and both qualitative and quantitative research techniques were used. Accordingly, the study was carried out with 140 (female: 71, male: 69) pre-service classroom teachers at the third grade in the academic year of 2010-2011. Four questions which were intended for basic skills about the concept of place value and which included possible errors that the students at the primary school might make were used as the data collection tool. The results of this research revealed that preservice teachers were more successful in understanding the errors than they were in the dept of analysing and using descriptive language. Preservice teachers; however, could not give satisfactory responses about analyzing the error and the language that they used in explaining the errors.

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