Pre-service teachers’ didactic conceptual structures in the absolute and quadratic inequalities

Abstract

his paper examined the didactic conceptual structures of preservice teachers in the absolute and quadratic inequalities to deduce mistakes and errors. Quasi-experimental and mixed exploratory sequential designs were adopted on the participants who worked in 37 groups of 10 members in the Department of Basic Education, University of Education, Winneba in Ghana. The data collection instruments consisted of 15 open ended items on the basic ideas of the absolute and quadratic inequalities to identify the didactic content knowledge in solving the problems. The thematic analysis of the conceptual structures as well as the marked scores revealed the errors and mistakes in the inner structures, inner relations, representations, and vertical horizontal relations preservice teachers had confronted in solving problems in absolute and quadratic inequalities. The implications of these would impact negatively on the teaching and learning of mathematics curriculum, and inappropriately applied in a variety of daily lives