Abstract:
The case study investigated prospective teachers’ understanding of concepts of fractions
following the IOE’s chief examiners’ reports that have raised concerns about the
persistent abysmal performance of the pre-service teachers on items on fractions in
mathematics examinations in the colleges of education in Ghana. The case study was
conducted in one college of education in the Central Region of Ghana with a sample of
26 pre-service teachers using a mixed method of sequential explanatory design approach.
The participants took an achievement test followed by interview with the view to gaining
insights into their understanding of specific concepts of fractions. The results indicated
that although almost all of the prospective teachers demonstrated high levels of
computational competence, none of them was able to demonstrate an understanding of
why the algorithm for the division of a fraction by a fraction works. With regard to their
Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) of fractions, almost half of the participants could
not generate any approach of teaching division of fractions to demonstrate an effective
PCK. It was recommended that a new approach of teaching fractions in which
connections are made between topics related to fractions be adopted by mathematics
tutors in the colleges of education to guide prospective teachers to acquire a deeper
conceptual understanding of fractions and their applications
