Abstract
The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between mathematics teachers’ educational backgrounds and their ideas about 1) what constitutes a mathematical model of a real-world phenomenon, and 2) how models and empirical data relate. Participants were 56 United States (US) in-service mathematics teachers (grades 5-9). We analysed teachers’ written responses to three open-ended questions through content analysis. Results show our participants do not hold a unitary understanding of mathematical models. Teachers with backgrounds in Mathematics Education and Science Disciplines especially stressed the usefulness of models to show general relationships, whereas those with backgrounds in Other Disciplines stressed the importance of producing exact results. Copyright © 2013 left to the authors.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Proceedings of the Eighth Congress of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education: CERME 8 |
| Editors | Behiye UBUZ, Çiğdem HASER, Maria Alessandra MARIOTTI |
| Place of Publication | Ankara |
| Publisher | Middle East Technical University |
| Pages | 960-969 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9789754293159, 9754293155 |
| Publication status | Published - 2013 |