Connecting Mathematics to Real Life: An Investigation on How Prospective Secondary Mathematics Teachers Build Real Life Connections

In recent years, it has been drawn attention to the real life connections with mathematics as an important topic. Although the majority of the studies in the literature point that building the real life connection is vital, only some of them examine how and why teachers and prospective teachers build this connection. The participants of this study were the third-year prospective mathematics teachers who were studying in the department of mathematics teaching at a medium-sized state university and who take the Special Teaching Methods-II course in spring 2015-2016. 57 prospective secondary mathematics teachers were asked to establish real life connections in the direction of objectives from the teaching program, and to explain their reasons. The codes obtained from the study of Gainsburg (2008) and Lee (2012) were used for the data analysis. The findings indicated that prospective teachers were able to make explicit connections between mathematics and real life, understand the relation of mathematics to real life, and appreciate the use of building connections for the students.