Consistent Instruments for Teaching Fractions in 4th Grade

In education systems both in Chile and worldwide, it is desirable to have consistent instruments to measure the knowledge required by teachers to help students learn. These would be useful instruments for teachers' initial and ongoing training. The purpose of this study was to develop two consistent instruments, one on teachers' in-depth knowledge of fractions, and one on teachers' understanding of the knowledge students bring into play when conceptualizing fractions in 4th grade. The instruments were administered on two occasions to groups of 30 elementary school teachers, and once to 20 students from the pedagogy in mathematics degree. After completing the corresponding psychometric procedures, two instruments with 12 and 10 questions were obtained, with an internal consistency of Cronbach's alpha 0.74 and 0.75.