• The Mathematical Education
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• v.62 no.3
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• pp.381-400
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• 2023

As the era of solving various and complex problems in the real world using artificial intelligence and big data appears, problem-solving competencies that can solve realistic problems through a mathematical approach are required. In fact, the 2015 revised mathematics curriculum and the 2022 revised mathematics curriculum emphasize mathematical modeling as an activity and competency to solve real-world problems. However, the real-world problems presented in domestic and international textbooks have a high proportion of artificial problems that rarely occur in real-world. Accordingly, domestic and international countries are paying attention to the reality of mathematical modeling tasks and suggesting the need for authentic tasks that reflect students' daily lives. However, not only did previous studies focus on theoretical proposals for reality, but studies analyzing teachers' perceptions of reality and their competency to reflect reality in the task are insufficient. Accordingly, this study aims to analyze in-service mathematics teachers' perception of reality among the characteristics of tasks for mathematical modeling and the in-service mathematics teachers' competency for designing the mathematical modeling tasks. First of all, five criteria for satisfying the reality were established by analyzing literatures. Afterward, teacher training was conducted under the theme of mathematical modeling. Pre- and post-surveys for 41 in-service mathematics teachers who participated in the teacher training was conducted to confirm changes in perception of reality. The pre- and post- surveys provided a task that did not reflect reality, and in-service mathematics teachers determined whether the task given in surveys reflected reality and selected one reason for the judgment among five criteria for reality. Afterwards, frequency analysis was conducted by coding the results of the survey answered by in-service mathematics teachers in the pre- and post- survey, and frequencies were compared to confirm in-service mathematics teachers' perception changes on reality. In addition, the mathematical modeling tasks designed by in-service teachers were evaluated with the criteria for reality to confirm the teachers' competency for designing mathematical modeling tasks reflecting the reality. As a result, it was shown that in-service mathematics teachers changed from insufficient perception that only considers fragmentary criterion for reality to perceptions that consider all the five criteria of reality. In particular, as a result of analyzing the basis for judgment among in-service mathematics teachers whose judgment on reality was reversed in the pre- and post-survey, changes in the perception of in-service mathematics teachers was confirmed, who did not consider certain criteria as a criterion for reality in the pre-survey, but considered them as a criterion for reality in the post-survey. In addition, as a result of evaluating the tasks designed by in-service mathematics teachers for mathematical modeling, in-service mathematics teachers showed the competency to reflect reality in their tasks. However, among the five criteria for reality, the criterion for "situations that can occur in students' daily lives," "need to solve the task," and "require conclusions in a real-world situation" were relatively less reflected. In addition, it was found that the proportion of teachers with low task development competencies was higher in the teacher group who could not make the right judgment than in the teacher group who could make the right judgment on the reality of the task. Based on the results of these studies, this study provides implications for teacher education to enable mathematics teachers to apply mathematical modeling lesson in their classes.