Abstract

This study investigates 55 preservice secondary mathematics teachers' situational understanding of functional relationship. Functional thinking is fundamental and useful because it develops students' quantitative thinking about the world and analytical thinking about complex situations through examination of the relations between interdependent factors. Functional thinking is indispensable for understanding natural phenomena, for investigation by science, and for the technological inventions in engineering and navigation. Therefore, it goes without saying that teachers should be able to represent and communicate about various functional situations in the course of teaching and learning functional relationships to develop students' functional thinking. The result of this study illustrates that many preservice teachers were not able to appropriately represent and communicate about various functional situations. Additionally, it shows that most preservice teachers have limited understanding of the value of teaching function.

Keywords

• Preservice teacher education;
• Teachers′ knowledge;
• Functional thinking

• 예비교사교육;
• 교사지식;
• 함수적 사고;