Examination of the Views of Class Teachers Regarding the Errors Primary School Students Make in Four Operations

Teaching of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division in mathematics starts from the first years of primary school. The learning output for four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) affects student success at every level of mathematics education from primary to higher education. At this point errors, misunderstandings and possible misconceptions of students need to be identified, eliminated, and the forms of instruction that prevent its formation need to be investigated. This study aims to identify the errors primary school students make in four operations according to the views of class teachers. The study was designed in the qualitative research design and the semi-structured interview form prepared by the researchers was used in the study. The study group consisted of 48 class teachers. It has been found out that students make more errors in adding, subtracting and multiplying decimal digits, and using zero in division. In addition, classroom teachers stated that the mistakes made in four operations result mostly from student, teacher, program and the student's family and environment respectively. Teachers made course content, teacher, student and family oriented suggestions to eliminate the mistakes in four operations.