ENHANCING SUBJECT MATTER KNOWLEDGE IN PRESERVICE MATHEMATICS TEACHERS: TRANSFORMING MATHEMATICS EDUCATION THROUGH PROBLEM-POSING INTERVENTIONS
Abstract
Mathematics education is making a shift towards learner-centredness with the implementation of standards-based curricula, with the subtle recognition of problem-posing as a transformative strategy in most jurisdictions, and Ghana is no exception. Although problem-posing is acknowledged as promoting conceptual understanding, it is hardly a pedagogical instructional strategy recommended for use in Ghana’s basic educational system. This discrepancy is worrying, given the increasing demand for inquiry-based teaching and learning. The study sought to investigate how problem-posing intervention influenced preservice teachers’ subject matter knowledge within the standards-based curriculum. The study employed the pragmatic paradigm, with a quasi-mixed one-group pretest-post-test case study design utilising a mixed-methods approach grounded largely in a qualitative approach that allowed an in-depth understanding of how problem-posing influenced the 25 participants' subject matter knowledge. Quantitative data were collected and analysed using a survey and the SOLO taxonomy, while the qualitative data were collected through interviews and analysed using thematic categorisation from the research questions. The results showed that most participants posed low-level problems while acknowledging the transformative role of the problem-posing intervention on their subject knowledge. The study concludes with a discussion of its limitations and recommendations.
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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejes.v13i1.6470
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