Proof schemes used by first grade of preservice mathematics teachers about function topic

The purpose of this study is to investigate how the preservice teachers justify their solutions for mathematics problems. With this purpose an examination was applied to 40 preservice teachers which were at the first grade of the department of elementary mathematics teacher education. Then 6 preservice teachers were randomly selected from these preservice teachers and clinical interviews were conducted with each of them. During the interviews 10 problems were asked to each preservice teachers. According to the data results, it's seen that preservice teachers solve the problems with different ways. The analysis of the data showed that preservice teachers usually used one of the empirical schemes, which was the example based in their justification. © 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd.