Student teachers' approaches to student's mistakes in the case of the absolute value concept

After the studies of Piaget and Bachelard, student’s mistakes were considered essential for learning and a messenger of knowledge being constructed. The purpose of this study was to define the approaches of student teachers regarding student’s mistakes and analyze those approaches in the light of learning theories (such as behaviorism, constructivism). The sample group consisted of 28 student-teachers from Secondary Mathematics Education department at the Ataturk Education Faculty of Marmara University. Data were collected through a questionnaire consisted of likert-type, open-ended and close-ended questions. In open-ended questions, student teachers were invited to interpret student’s mistakes on the concept of absolute value acquired from related literature. Data were analyzed and interpreted by the means of quantitative and qualitative approaches. One of the most considerable results of the study was that student teachers’ conceptions regarding the mistakes of the students reflected the approaches of classical and behaviorist views about learning.