Browsing by Author "Takanen, Jaakko"

The goal for my thesis is to examine how do preschoolers understand mathematics and what kind of attitudes do they have towards mathematics. To reach this goal of the thesis, twelve preschoolers are interviewed. The children are asked, how do they understand mathematics. Next the children are asked, what is easy or difficult for them in mathematics. Finally the children are asked, what kind of mathematicians they think they are and how do they like mathematics. The meaning of this thesis is based on getting information about how preschools teach mathematics. The answers of the children will reveal how mathematics has been taught to them. The interviews were made in a preschool in Vantaa. The interviews were made in May of year 2016. The final reasearch material contained the answers of ten preschoolers. The interviews were semi-structured interviews, which were recorded and analyzed as qualitative content analysis requires. All the questions asked in the interviews were formed by the research problems. According to the results, it seems that most preschoolers think that mathematics include only addition, subtraction and multiplication. Their answers reveal that addition is most often considered easy and multiplication is most often considered difficult. The preschoolers thougt that their skills in mathematics are good or pretty good. Most of the children liked mathematics. According to this thesis, it seems like preeschoolers think mathematics is only about calculation. It seems that preschools should focus more on other contents of mathematics, so that children can construct deeper understanding of mathematics.