Theoretical framework Teachers’ knowledge affects the way they teach. However, it is important to consider their beliefs about teaching as well. As Ernest (1989) mentions, two teachers may have similar content knowledge but their instructional practices differ since they have different beliefs about teaching. Several studies indicated the close connection between teachers’ beliefs and their teaching practices (Kagan, 1992; Thompson, 1992; Stipek et. al, 2001). To clarify, teachers with traditional beliefs about teaching tend to apply traditional instruction in their classroom; on the other hand teachers with constructivist beliefs prefer to use student-centred instruction. The aim of mathematics teaching is to promote students’ thinking style by developing their basic mathematical skills such as problems solving, reasoning, generalization abilities, communication skills as well as psychomotor skills. By the means of these skills, students can follow the development of technology. In addition, mathematics is closely related to daily life, industry, art and science (MEB, 2003). Considering these, the purpose of this study is to obtain pre-service mathematics teachers’ beliefs about the necessity of mathematics teaching. Research question is: What are the 5th year pre-service mathematics teachers’ beliefs about the necessity of mathematics teaching?

Methodology Forty six fifth year pre-service mathematics teachers participated in the present study. They completed subject matter courses such as General Mathematics, Linear Algebra, Discreet Mathematics, Algebra, Topology and most of the pedagogical courses such as Introduction to Teaching Profession, Methods of Mathematics Teaching, Instructional Technology and Material Development. Moreover, they completed two School Experience courses. They had the opportunity to observe their mentors’ instructional practices in mathematics classes. The participants were expected to graduate in the next semester. The present study is a qualitative study. Therefore, two open-ended questions, “Why is mathematics taught in high schools?”; “What is the necessity of teaching mathematics in high schools?” were asked to pre-service teachers. They were wanted to write their opinions about these questions as detailed as possible. They were assured that this would not affect their course grade. Pre-service teachers’ written responses formed the raw data. In order to analyze the data, categories were constructed according to pre-service teachers’ written responses. In some cases, a pre-service teacher’s response included statements belonging to more than one category.

Results and Implications Analysis of data revealed that most commonly response (40%) given by the pre-service mathematics teachers was that mathematics teaching was necessary in order to promote higher order thinking skills. Some of these skills mentioned was problem solving skills, critical thinking skills, analytical thinking skills. Another common response (35%) was that mathematics was essential for daily life. For example, most students indicated the importance of mathematics in shopping. Finally, some pre-service teachers (25%) wrote that mathematics was important for other disciplines, such as chemistry, physics, economy and technology. This study has some implications. First of all, it is promising that most pre-service teachers were aware of the fact that mathematics teaching would promote higher order thinking skills. Furthermore pre-service teachers’ explanations were consistent with the aim of mathematics teaching in Turkey. On the other hand, as a future study, practice of these pre-service teachers may be evaluated in order to understand whether or not their beliefs mentioned in this study reflect their practice.