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Abstract:
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Future primary education teachers should acquire appropriate mathematical knowledge, skills, and
abilities to provide a suitable environment for developing their prospective students' responding
knowledge, skills, and abilities. Various studies in education show that students of all ages have
difficulties mastering geometric concepts and making functional connections between them,
especially at the transition from school to university level.
Therefore, a quasi-experimental study was conducted with non-equivalent groups of future primary
education teachers. The study aimed to determine a particular teaching method's effectiveness for
developing visualization skills, geometric thinking, and optimizing geometry learning outcomes.
Three tests were used before and after teaching to collect data on the characteristics of the research
participants. The tests were: the VH test to measure the level of geometric thinking, the GEO test to
gain insight into geometric knowledge and visual skills, and the SPAC test to measure the unique
visual-spatial ability to establish connections between 3D figures and their networks. In the
experimental group, a specific teaching approach was applied. The teaching approach is based on the
visual-analytical method and directed observation and balancing of three ways of expression:
linguistic, visual, and symbolic. Van Hiele's five stages of learning were used in the structuring and
selecting of teaching activities.
The pre-test results confirmed the relatively weak prior knowledge, visualization skills, and level of
geometric thinking of all participants, and the possession of appropriate visual-spatial abilities that
predict possible success. The t-test confirmed no statistically significant difference between the
participants at the beginning of the teaching. The Spearman correlation coefficient determined a
positive, statistically significant correlation between all three tests, indicating a possibility for mutual
development.
The post-test results confirmed the effectiveness of the applied strategies and teaching methods in
achieving better geometry learning outcomes, developing visual literacy, and progress in the levels
of geometric thinking of the participants in the experimental group. The experimental group
participants had statistically significantly better results on the post-test than the results they achieved
on the pre-test compared to the results achieved by the control group participants who were taught
more traditionally. Participants in the control group also improved, but these improvements were not
statistically significant.
The above confirmed that it is possible to develop geometry and visual literacy through systematic
learning and teaching at different levels of the educational system. |