APPLYING PERSONAL CONSTRUCT PSYCHOLOGY TO THE STUDY OF TEACHERS KNOWLEDGE OF FRACTIONS

Personal construct psychology provides a coherent theoretical and methodological framework for the examination of teachers' knowledge. We report case studies of two teachers who varied in their knowledge about fractions and mathematical pedagogy. We used personal construct psychology and the logic of fuzzy sets to elucidate the content and organization of the teachers' knowledge of fractions. The approach proved especially useful for describing conditional relationships among content, general pedagogical, and pedagogical content knowledge frames. We also explored associations between teachers' personal constructions and their classroom teaching. These associations suggested that personal construct psychology shows considerable promise as a way of addressing issues of teacher knowledge in the context of the classroom.