Abstract

In this study, explanations of future mathematics teachers about algebra were analysed according to the levels of understanding used by Kinach (2002). The participants for the study were 101 teacher candidates attending the final semester of a teacher training program. For data collection, a form containing four scenario-type items were administered to the participants. In addition, interviews were carried out on six participants selected through purposeful sampling technique. The findings of the study showed that the participants mostly provided content-level explanations based on procedural understanding. The second frequent type of explanation was at the concept level. The problem solving-epistemic level explanations were found to be used less. At the level of content, the explanations were mostly related to rules while at the level of concept, the explanations were based on inductive reasoning. 

Key words: Future mathematics teachers, pedagogical content knowledge, instructional explanations, levels of understanding.