Pre-service teachers’ explanations of primitive terms: point, line and plane

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate how pre-service elementary mathematics teachers explain three primitive terms: point, line, and plane. A qualitative exploratory case study design was conducted with 61 participants. The data collected by an open-ended questionnaire was analyzed through the content analysis technique by utilizing NVivo software. The findings showed that pre-servicemathematics teachers tended to use signs related to both characteristics and the essence of the terms. This can be due to the fact that terms tried to be explained are the primitive terms and that the explanations given by Euclid about these terms are not easy to understand. In some explanations, more than one sign was used to make the definition more understandable. However, although the signs usedfor explaining the term seem to constitute its definition, these signs cannot always literally represent this term and cannot be used in place of that term.