Representation of Three-Dimesnional Structures and Interpretation of such Representations among Teachers-In-Training

Students often have difficulty interpreting two-dimensional representations of three-dimensional figures. This paper examines how effectively pre-service teachers in three training institutions describe and interpret two-dimensional representations of three-dimensional solids. The protocols obtained were classified along a continuum with poles of geometers and analytics, and into categories used in earlier research. Over half the sample used a mixture of drawings and verbal descriptions to represent the three-dimensional solids. Drawingswere considered a more useful guide than the verbal descriptions for reconstructing the solids. No sex differences were found in representations of the three- dimensional solids, nor in interpretations of the two- dimensional illustrations.