USING A RESEARCH SIMULATION TO CHALLENGE PROSPECTIVE TEACHERS BELIEFSABOUT MATHEMATICS

A cohort of first year prospective primary school teachers became awar e of the affective aspects of learning mathematics through a research simulation. The students posed questions about issues that they saw as problematic in mathematics education and then participated in intervi ews in which they acted as researchers and respondents. The research s imulation continued, in that students enacted other roles typical of r esearchers, such as disseminating the results of their research to the community. Using a research simulation encouraged beliefs to become e xplicit and promoted opportunity for reflection about the implication of those beliefs for prospective primary school teachers of mathematic s. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.