Conhecimento dos professores das séries iniciais sobre problemas de estruturas aditivas e multiplicativas

Abstract

The present work investigated teacher's knowledge concerning additive and multiplicative structures. A test, composed of 24 items was applied to twentyseven public primary school teachers. The average score was 20,3. Even though the teachers' score was high, errors were found mainly in three types of problems: comparison of measures, proportion and fractions. Teacher's difficulties were similar to those of elementary school students. In addition, the great majority of teachers showed difficulties in drawing Vergnaud's diagrams used to represent problems from additive structures. The teachers did not draw the diagrams, made representation errors and mixed up the different types of diagrams. The data raises concern about teecher's knowledge, considering that they were submitted to tests at most of fourth grade levei questions. It was expected that teachers would answer correctly ali the test items, since they are suposed to help students surpass these dificulties.