Abstract:
This study was an attempt to identify pre-service primary teachers orientations on mathematics on completion of their First Year unit in Mathematics Education. The grounds for investigating epistemological orientations are based on the view that certain orientations are more likely to result in in depth learning than others. Wilkinson (1989) wrote of the relationship between the ways a student learns and his or her definition of knowledge. Royce and Mos (1980) regarded a student's epistemological orientation to be relatively fixed, depending on the learners "ability to symbolize conscious and unconscious experiences (Wilkinson, 1989)". The models preferred here are those which suggest that there is a progression in students' thinking about knowledge, elaborated in schemes by Perry (1968), and Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger and Tarule, (1986).