PROCEEDINGS OF THE 23RD ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2020
Boston, Massachusetts
A preservice teacher’s Emerging concept image of function: The case of Sofia
Page: 37
For over thirty years, the mathematics education research community has investigated individuals’ function conceptions and advocated the importance of a strong function conception. This is particularly important in the case of preservice secondary mathematics teachers (PSMTs) as their knowledge of function will influence their future teaching of function. This study explores how one PSMTs’, Sofia’s, function concept image changes when she engages with research-based tasks and explorations designed to elicit cognitive conflicts related to function conceptions. Thematic analysis methods were applied to open-ended, tasked-based pre- and post-interviews designed to evoke aspects of individuals’ function concept image. Between the pre- and post-interviews, Sofia participated in a course that implemented 11 explorations on functions. Comparing the themes identified in her pre- and post-interviews, researchers identified four changes in Sofia’s function concept image. These changes relate to beliefs about functions and equations, non-numerical functions, functions and graphs, and the vertical line test.