Parallelism and transversals in geometry: Experiences of fresh senior high school graduates into teacher education

Stephen Rowland Baidoo; Josephine Celestine Baidoo

doi:10.29333/mathsciteacher/12641

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Stephen Rowland Baidoo ¹ ^* , Josephine Celestine Baidoo ²

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¹ School of Education, University of Tasmania, Hobart, AUSTRALIA² Department of Mathematics and Science, Holy Child High School, Cape Coast, GHANA^* Corresponding Author

Abstract

This study was set up to investigate the newly admitted senior high school graduates’ geometric representation of corresponding and alternate angles in contexts where parallel and non-parallel lines are cut by a transversal. The study also examined their reasoning about parallelism. 25 volunteers, through a pilot study, responded to a series of geometric tasks meant to assess geometry reasoning and understanding. This study reports on the data dealing with the afore-mentioned concepts.
The findings indicate that: the participants were more able to identify geometric representation of alternate angles (64%) than they were with corresponding angles (44%); participants’ written narratives demonstrated evidence of imprecision in their reasoning about parallelism; and most participants showed limited knowledge and use of necessary keywords to justify parallelism. The findings suggest participants showed diverse conceptual understanding of alternate and corresponding angles and demonstrate insufficient and ‘suspended’ knowledge of parallelism.

Keywords

parallel lines
corresponding and alternate angles
pre-service teachers
geometric representations
senior high school graduates

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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Article Type: Research Article

Journal of Mathematics and Science Teacher, 2023, Volume 3, Issue 1, Article No: em025

https://doi.org/10.29333/mathsciteacher/12641

Publication date: 01 Jan 2023

Online publication date: 14 Nov 2022

Article Views: 776

Article Downloads: 745

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How to cite this article

APA

Baidoo, S. R., & Baidoo, J. C. (2023). Parallelism and transversals in geometry: Experiences of fresh senior high school graduates into teacher education. Journal of Mathematics and Science Teacher, 3(1), em025. https://doi.org/10.29333/mathsciteacher/12641

Vancouver

Baidoo SR, Baidoo JC. Parallelism and transversals in geometry: Experiences of fresh senior high school graduates into teacher education. Journal of Mathematics and Science Teacher. 2023;3(1):em025. https://doi.org/10.29333/mathsciteacher/12641

AMA

Baidoo SR, Baidoo JC. Parallelism and transversals in geometry: Experiences of fresh senior high school graduates into teacher education. Journal of Mathematics and Science Teacher. 2023;3(1), em025. https://doi.org/10.29333/mathsciteacher/12641

Chicago

Baidoo, Stephen Rowland, and Josephine Celestine Baidoo. "Parallelism and transversals in geometry: Experiences of fresh senior high school graduates into teacher education". Journal of Mathematics and Science Teacher 2023 3 no. 1 (2023): em025. https://doi.org/10.29333/mathsciteacher/12641

Harvard

Baidoo, S. R., and Baidoo, J. C. (2023). Parallelism and transversals in geometry: Experiences of fresh senior high school graduates into teacher education. Journal of Mathematics and Science Teacher, 3(1), em025. https://doi.org/10.29333/mathsciteacher/12641

MLA

Baidoo, Stephen Rowland et al. "Parallelism and transversals in geometry: Experiences of fresh senior high school graduates into teacher education". Journal of Mathematics and Science Teacher, vol. 3, no. 1, 2023, em025. https://doi.org/10.29333/mathsciteacher/12641