How Do They Measure Up? Primary Pre-service Teachers’ Mathematical Knowledge of Area and Perimeter

Source: Mathematics Teacher Education and Development, Vol 14, No. 2, 2012.

The present article reports on the results of three different investigations into pre-service teachers’ understanding of the mathematical concepts of area and perimeter.

Different test instruments were used with three cohorts from two Australian universities in order to identify pre-service teachers’ understandings and common misconceptions.

The results indicated that many pre-service teachers across the cohorts had a procedural understanding of area and perimeter, displayed similar misconceptions to their student counterparts, and were limited in their ability to demonstrate examples of the mathematics knowledge required to teach these topics.