METAPHORICAL PERCEPTIONS OF PROSPECTIVE ELEMENTARY MATHEMATICS TEACHERS TOWARDS THE CONCEPT OF CALCULUS

This study aims to investigate the perceptions of prospective elementary mathematics teachers about calculus via metaphors. Participants of the study consist of 100 prospective elementary mathematics teachers at Sinop University, Department of Elementary Mathematics Education in Turkey. The data of the research has been obtained by completing the following sentence for each teacher candidate: “Calculus is like … ; because …”. Content analysis is used for the evaluation of the research data. A total of 66 different metaphors are produced by the participants and these metaphors are divided into a total of five categories. As a result, it is understood that mostly “Water”, “Labyrinth” and “Rubik's cube” metaphors are used by the participants and the category “Understanding Calculus and Strategy Use” has the most metaphors.