Geometry content knowledge: Is pre-service training making a difference?

Abstract

Huge financial investments are made annually in teacher training in order to prepare prospective teachers for a career in teaching. The impact of pre-service training on prospective mathematics teachers' (n=124) content knowledge (using the Van Hiele Theory) is investigated. Results seem to indicate that prospective teachers exit their school career with higher geometric understanding than after three years of mathematics content and methodology training or after four years of methodology training. The deterioration in prospective teachers' geometry content knowledge indicates that pre-service education does not assist in maintaining or improving levels of geometric understanding. Possible contributing factors are identified such as the fragmented nature of pre-service teacher education programme and the absence of a long-term strategy connecting teacher education to teaching practice in a meaningful way. The results have serious implications for pre-service mathematics education programmes and some suggestions on the features of an improved programme are made.