Malaysian and American Preservice Teachers' Ability and Perspective on Mathematical Problem-Posing

Problem-posing has received considerable attention among the mathematics education community. In the present study, researchers explored preservice teachers in two countries in terms of their ability and perspectives on mathematical problem-posing. Twenty-four preservice teachers in a secondary school program in Malaysia and 26 preservice teachers in the middle school program in the United States participated in this study. The preservice teachers posed at least three mathematical block pattern problems and these were categorized according to structures, mathematical concepts, languages, and relevance elements. The results showed the American preservice teachers demonstrated better performance on the structure, mathematical concepts, and compatibility elements. The inferential analysis showed significant differences in problem-posing skills between these two groups of preservice teachers on structure (U = 149.5, p = .006) and relevance (U = 156.50, p =. 008) of the mathematical problems. Both groups had similar perspectives related to posing mathematical problems. Implications for classroom instruction were also discussed.