Examining the method of proofs and refutations in pre-service teachers education

Abstract

There is some evidence in the mathematics education literature that Lakatos' proofs and refutation methods can be useful to examining students' conjecture production and proof construction process. The purpose of this study was to determine how the Lakatos method goes and which steps of the method works in the teacher education program. The population sample for this study consists of 24 senior pre-service teachers in elementary mathematics education in Turkey (16 women and 8 men). Pre-service teachers were given a problem in which they examined the relation between perimeter and area of a rectangle. Data was collected with a camera, field notes, and groups' written solutions and analyzed on the basis of framework included in Larsen and Zandieh's (2008) study. The finding revealed that Lakatos' method was usable in the teacher education program. But some steps of the method described in Lakatos' (1976) historical case study were not provided in the real classroom environment.