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Teacher Sceneries Related to "Length Area Volume Concept" Turkey Case

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 TEACHER SCENERIES RELATED TO “LENGTH&AREA&VOLUME”:
TURKEY CASE

Elçin Emrea,* , Ziya Argün a,, Gönül Yazgan a,

Abstract

Many researches in different areas of education denote that philosophical arguments

assist the aspect that teachers' own subject matter knowledge influences their efforts to help
students learn subject matter. The teachers might convey their limited ideas to students if they
have narrow information about the subject.
In this research, our purpose is to investigate and examine mathematics teachers’
opinions’ related with the concepts of length, area and volume.
The data of this research were collected from fifteen teachers who work at the Ministry
of Education, at different private courses and newly-graduates by the written examination
which aims to determine the teachers’ will to be accepted to a foundation high school at the
semester of 2007-2008 in Turkey. “Can you write down your opinions about concepts of
length, area and volume?” was the one of the questions that were being asked to the
participants. Teachers’ responses were examined by considering to purpose of this research.
The collected data were separated into meaningful units and, they were coded and categorized
according to these units. Then these categories were analyzed and interpreted and therefore
we can declare the way of data analysis as ―document analysis‖.
In the light of findings of this research, it is seen that the teachers define ―length‖ as
distance, measurable size, measurable quantity and dimension. They use definitions such as
plane region, covered surface/region/plane, boundary region for the concept of ―area‖ and
place covered by objects capacity of an object, limited region in space for the concept of
―volume‖. Besides, as we consider the teachers’ responses to the question which we focused
on, we discovered that the teachers have very shallow and inappropriate knowledge about the
concepts ―length, area and volume‖.
Keywords: Subject matter knowledge, teacher training, the concepts of length, area and
volume.

a
Gazi University,Ankara,Turkey ; *elcinemre@gazi.edu.tr
1. Introduction
When we analyze the education policies of the countries in the world we can conclude
that the teachers are responsible to prepare learners to be independent, cultured, and well
equipped individuals for the future; consequently teachers can be seen as mediators of
learning. In this paper we will focus on the teachers in the classroom context, one of which
they are obligated to be able to: subject matter knowledge.
1.1. Subject matter knowledge
There are many studies which investigate the teacher’s knowledge about subject matter
and teaching skills (Kahan et al, 2003; Tsamir, 2005; Peng, 2007; Kennedy,1998). In the
classroom the teachers’ knowledge includes the knowledge of the content of mathematics, of
pedagogy, of students’ cognitions and of their own beliefs (Fennema& Franke, 1992).
Teacher’s knowledge of the nature of mathematics predicates his/her view of how teaching
should take place in the classroom (Hersh, 1986). Researches denote that philosophical
arguments assist the aspect that teachers' own subject matter knowledge influences their
efforts to help students learn subject matter (Thompson,1984); more clearly, if the teachers
are not enough capable and/or their teaching is invariable then they can do much harm
(Conant, 1963). The teachers might convey their limited ideas to students if they have limited
information about the subject. They may not handle their students’ misconceptions let alone
identify them; they may not criticize texts or modify them appropriately. In this field,
Shulman (1986) maintained that ―teachers must not only be capable of defining for students
the accepted truths in a domain. They must also be able to explain why a particular
proposition is deemed warranted; why it is worth knowing and how it relates to other
propositions‖(p.9). This judgment corresponds with content knowledge. Shulman (1987)
explained in invention of the knowledge base for teaching: subject matter knowledge (SMK),
general pedagogical knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), which he defines
as a ―special amalgam of content and pedagogy that is uniquely the province of teachers, their
own special form of professional understanding‖ (p. 8).
Specifically in mathematics education community, having a good mathematical
knowledge which includes deep understanding topics as a teaching subject is expected from
the mathematics teachers (e.g., Australian Education Council, 1991; NCTM, 2000). It is
important in what ways teachers understand the subject matter since it’s effects teachers’
capacity to pose questions, select tasks, evaluate students’ understanding, and make curricular
choices (Grossman et al, 1989); briefly, when teaching topics that are part of the curriculum,
teachers are expected to be experts in the area they teach (Even&Tirosh, 1995). For these
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Gazi University,Ankara,Turkey ; *elcinemre@gazi.edu.tr
reasons we made our focus on the teachers’ subject matter knowledge of a mathematical
concept– ―Volume&Lenght&Area‖.

1.2.Volume&Lenght&Area Concept
If we look closely to concepts in mathematics, when all concepts are taken into
consideration together; concepts of length, area and volume may seem simple. However,
when it comes to defining these concepts, some confusion occur (Suggate et al, 1998). Let us
closely look at the definitions of these concepts:
Length is a characteristic of an object and can be found by quantifying how far it is
between the endpoints of the object (Clements&Stephan, 2001); Length is the
long dimension of any object (www.wolfram.com, www.wikipedia.org). The length of a thing
is the distance between its ends, its linear extent as measured from end to
end (www.wikipedia.org).
Area is an amount of two-dimensional surface that is contained within a boundary
and that can be quantified in some manner (Baturo & Nason, 1996); Area is
a quantity expressing the two-dimensional size of a defined part of a surface, typically a
region bounded by a closed curve (www.wikipedia.org); The area of a surface or lamina is the
amount of material needed to "cover" it completely (www.wolfram.com). But in this study,
we consider the concept of area as a characteristic of a two dimensional object and it can be
quantified as an amount of material needed to "cover" it completely.
The volume of any solid, liquid, plasma, vacuum or theoretical object is how much
three-dimensional space it occupies, often quantified numerically (www.wikipedia.org); The
volume of a solid body is the amount of "space" it occupies ( www.wolfram.com). But in this
study, we consider the concept of volume as a characteristic of a three dimensional object and
it can be quantified as an amount of "space" it occupies.
As we stated just before, subject matter knowledge is very important qualification for
being a good teacher (Farah-Sirkis, 1999); the purpose of this study is to investigate the
knowledge related with the concepts of length, area and volume which may seem simple to
define.
2. Methodology
The data of this research were collected from fifteen teachers who work at the
Ministry of Education, at different private courses and newly-graduates from different
Universities by the written examination which aims to determine the teachers’ will to be
accepted to a foundation high school at the semester of 2007-2008 in Turkey.This exam

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Gazi University,Ankara,Turkey ; *elcinemre@gazi.edu.tr
included 8 questions and it was prepared by two staffs in Mathematics Education Department.
These questions were planned in three groups: subject matter knowledge, pedagogical
knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. One of the questions was “ Can you write
down your opinions about concepts of length, area and volume?” which was included in
subject matter knowledge. For each participant we gave a nick name during the data analysis
and we examined teachers’ responses considering purpose of this research. The collected data
were separated into meaningful units and according to these units, the data, were coded and
categorized; after that the categories were analyzed and interpreted (Patton 2002). Coding was
performed according to the results reached behind this the literacy about teachers’ knowledge
and angle concept take into consideration for coding (Strauss&Corbin, 1990). In other words,
it can be said that ―document analysis‖ is used for the analysis of the data (Patton 2002).
Document analysis contributes analyzing every kind of representations which used by
participants when answering to the questions.
For the validity and reliability of the research the obtained data were coded and
categorized by another researcher and then these two groups of constructed categories were
compared. After this comparison we have 70 % similarity between these two groups of
categories. For validity of the qualitative part of this research we asked an expert researcher to
examine the process of the research (Patton,2002; Yıldırım &Şimşek, 2006).
3.Findings
In this section we try to give findings which are obtained from the analysis of the data
consist of teachers’ responses related with the question “Can you write down your opinions
about the concepts of length, area and volume?”
Teachers’ responses about the definition of lenght concept are categorized as below:
 distance,
 measurable size,
 measurable quantity
 dimension

Apart from these categories, one answer stood out among the others. The definition by the
participant is given below:
“We can handle of the concept of length in two ways, the one is quantitative and the
other is qualitative. The measurements which we measure by measurement tools are
called quantitative, while the ones which we don‟t measure by measurement tools are
called qualitative. For instance, let‟s assume that the length of a table as 1,5 meters. This

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Gazi University,Ankara,Turkey ; *elcinemre@gazi.edu.tr
 is the actual length of our table. But if we measure it with Efe‟s hand span and Can‟s
hand span, the length of the table will be 12 hand spans and 13 hand spans respectively.”

When we take a close look at the paragraph, we can observe that the participant doesn’t
have a concrete and mathematical idea of the length concept, but has an intuitive set of
knowledge regarding the measuring the length of an object and units of length measurement.
After categorizing the teachers’ responses about the definition of the concept area we have
the following three categories:
 Plane region,
 Covered surface/region/plane,
 Boundary region
Most of teachers described area as ―covered plane‖ Figure 1 is including one of
drawing made by a participant:

Figure 1
The participant explains the concept of area as: "[…] The concept of area denotes a
region, which the geometrical figures cover on a certain plane […].”
During analyze the data; an interesting participant who gave the following answer drew
our attention: “It is obtained by multiplying the width and length of an object […].” It seems
that this participant’s perception about the concept of area does not include ―tiling (or
partitioning) a region with a two-dimensional unit of measure‖ (Clements&Stephan, 2001).
At this point, it is seen that this participant has no actual conceptual understanding related
with the concept of area, if he/she has, this perception is very intuitive. Actually, he/she has
been focusing on just calculation area of a two dimensional region or a surface by applying a
rule, multiplying two lengths, without thinking any other detail.
After analysis of the data, the teachers’ responses about the definition the concept of
volume can be categorized in three groups which are
 place covered by objects
 capacity of an object
 limited region in space
Apart from these categories, one answer stood out among the others. The definition and
drawing (Figure2) by the participant is given below:
“We can explain the concept of volume on IR3 space. The triangle we defined on IR2 has
turned into a triangular prism. The geometrical figure acquired an area not only on one

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Gazi University,Ankara,Turkey ; *elcinemre@gazi.edu.tr
plane, but on a number of planes. Therefore, these constituted the surfaces of the said
geometrical figure. The volume formula has become the following: Volume=A(ABC).h‟/3 "

Figure 2

At this point, it is seen that this participant has no actual conceptual understanding related
with the concept of volume.
If we look at the whole categories in detail, we can see that the majority of the participants
couldn’t define these concepts as ―mathematical concepts‖ considering the all aspects and
dimensions of them. In generally, all participants have very weak conceptual understanding
related with these concepts, yet this is not enough; for, they do not possess overall knowledge.
4. Conclusion
Farah-Sirkis (1999) stated that both experienced and novice teachers (80% of total)
view subject matter knowledge is essential as qualification for being a ―good‖ mathematics
teacher. If being a good mathematics teacher requires constructing the concepts in students’
minds, we should have ―good‖ content knowledge as teachers. In this sense for our study we
seek teachers’ content knowledge of length, area and volume concept. We conclude that the
teachers who took an examination have quite inappropriate, incomplete content knowledge
for length, area and volume in mathematics content with holes. Length, area and volume
concepts appeared simple, but were actually complex (Berenson et. al., 1997), what we mean
by that is these concepts can have profound meanings then they actually seem to have. For
this reason to teach such multifaceted concepts, a teacher in the classroom should be able to
give different representations for the pupils. But we saw in our study that the teachers’
background, that is content knowledge, is very weak and narrow about the concept.
At this point teacher educations take the stage again! We think that, the first and
foremost reason of teachers having weak and narrow content knowledge is the training they
receive in the schools (primary, middle and secondary); secondly, they cannot bridge the gap
between what they learn in the undergraduate curriculum and what they teach students in
schools (Wu, 1999). In educational faculties as trainers we think that our duty is to help
teachers understand the essential characteristics, logical reasoning and coherence of
mathematics.

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Gazi University,Ankara,Turkey ; *elcinemre@gazi.edu.tr
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Gazi University,Ankara,Turkey ; *elcinemre@gazi.edu.tr

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