Abstract:

This study examines prospective teachers’ understanding of graphical representations. The research findings indicate that prospective teachers have difficulties in understanding the relationships between the variables in the graphical contexts. The participants were successful in dealing with the graphs that required quantitative approach, such as dealing with a graph point-by-point or making algebraic manipulations to tease out information embedded in the situation. They were also quite competent to deal with the graphs in a global way providing that the graphs represented real life situations. Nevertheless, very few participants were able to interpret graphs in a global way when the graphs required qualitative approaches, such as an understanding of how changes in the algebraic form of a function could affect the graph of that function

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