Proceedings of The International Conference on Modern Research in Education, Teaching and Learning
Year: 2019
DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/icmetl.2019.06.292
Effect of Reading on the Scientific and Mathematical Reasoning of Future Elementary School Teachers
David Méndez, Juan Carlos Sánchez, Gregorio Pérez, Antonio Rodríguez and Marta Martín
ABSTRACT:
Future teachers should be prepared to teach Science and Mathematics when they finish their studies. Understanding scientific and mathematical concepts is necessary to develop reading and reasoning abilities, which should be improved through teacher training. In this research project, the goal is to measure reading speed and comprehension, scientific and mathematical reasoning and to test the correlations between these variables. The instruments used were three texts with questions from PISA: the first one in order to measure speed of reading and comprehension, the second to measure scientific reasoning and the third one to measure mathematical reasoning. The sample consists of 198 students in their first, second, third or fourth year of university, all of them studying to become elementary school teachers. The results, which are not satisfactory, indicate the need for improvement of their reading speed and scientific and mathematical reasoning. Moreover, the variables of this research show that the level of fourth year students is usually lower than the level of first year students.
Keywords: PISA, reading fluency, reading comprehension, reasoning abilities, university students.