Educational Research and Reviews

  • Abbreviation: Educ. Res. Rev.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN: 1990-3839
  • DOI: 10.5897/ERR
  • Start Year: 2006
  • Published Articles: 2004

Article in Press

Analyzing students’ views about mathematics teaching through stories and story generation process

Esra Altintas

The purpose of this study is to investigate primary mathematics education students’ views about mathematics teaching through stories and the story generation process. To this end, the study attempts to help primary mathematics education students to create stories for teaching middle school students mathematics and to gain experiences through the story generation process. Accordingly, the research question was formulated as follows: “What are the views of 3rd grade primary mathematics education students about mathematics teachings through stories and the story generation process? This study is of importance as it involves the evaluation of the use of stories in mathematics teaching. Additionally, within the scope of the study, mathematics education students made stories of mathematics subjects according to middle school students’ level and produced an instructional material that can be used in mathematics classes. The study group consisted of 12 third-grade students studying primary mathematics education. The study used a case study research design which is an interactive qualitative research design. The data were analyzed through content analysis. The views were presented under a set of themes and categories. According to the views of the participating students, mathematics teaching through stories arises interest in topics and provides clarity, promotes love for mathematics and imagination, fosters the reinforcement and retention of mathematics topics, facilitates establishing connections with everyday life, fosters student engagement, can be used as a tool of role-playing and as a technological support, promotes students’ mathematics achievement, facilitates understanding abstract and difficult mathematical concepts, and offers such benefits as imagination and retention. The participating students also stated that the story generation process helped them to gain empathy, creativity, and the skills of concretization and level-setting, to reflect on their own story generation processes, to use their imagination, to discuss stories, and to digitize stories and convert them into a book.

Keywords: Mathematics teaching, mathematics teaching through stories, primary mathematics education, student views, story generation process, mathematical stories.