ELEMENTARY MATHEMATICS TEACHERS’ SPECIALIZED CONTENT KNOWLEDGE RELATED TO DIVISION BY ZERO

Abstract

Division by zero is often unclear and confusing, and teachers at various grade levels may encounter difficulties in conveying this concept to their students. The concept of dividing by zero plays a crucial role in developing an understanding of certain mathematical concepts, such as rational numbers and the relationship between multiplication and division. Therefore, in order to provide students with a strong conceptual understanding about division by zero, it is important to examine the in-service teachers’ knowledge. The aim of this study was to explore the in-service teachers’ specialized content knowledge concerning division by zero, as well as the effects of variables which are years of service and education status on teachers’ specialized content knowledge. The study consisted of a case-study and was carried out with 82 in-service teachers of elementary mathematics at Afyonkarahisar in Turkey. To determine the in-service teachers’ specialized content knowledge, a written questionnaire was used. Data were analyzed by using inductive and deductive analysis. Analysis of the results revealed that although most of the in-service teachers gave correct answers related to division by zero, few of them provided conceptual explanations. Rather, those who gave correct explanations mainly responded with rule-based statements.