• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
• /
• v.27 no.3
• /
• pp.411-430
• /
• 2017

This study examined the understanding of 24 pre-service teachers about the three contexts for constructing the exponential graphs. The three contexts consisted of the infinite points context (2009 revision curriculum textbook method), the infinite straight lines context (French textbook method), and the continuous compounding context (2015 revision curriculum textbook method). As the result of the examination, most of the pre-service teachers selected the infinite points context as easier context for introducing the exponential graph. They noted that it was the appropriate method because they thought their students would easily understand, but they showed the most errors in the graph presentation of this method. These errors are interpreted as a lack of content knowledge. In addition, a number of pre-service teachers noted that the infinite straight lines context and continuous compounding context were not appropriate because these contexts can aggravate students' difficulty in understanding. What they pointed out was interpreted in terms of knowledge of content and students, but at the same time those things revealed a lack of content knowledge for understanding the continuous compounding context. In fact, considering the curriculum they have experienced, they were not familiar with this context, continuous compounding. These results suggest that pre-service teacher education should be improved. Finally, some of the pre-service teachers mentioned that using technology can help the students' difficulties because they considered the design of visual model.