Relations between educational constructs of elementary school geometry teachers

Thirty two elementary school geometry teachers who teach grades three to five and twenty elementary school geometry teachers who teach grades one and two were interviewed for 30-45 minutes each, about their conceptions of geometry, their conception of the need to teach geometry in the elementary school, their teaching methods, what they think about the success or failure of their teaching methods and what geometric skills they think are necessary for the elementary school students. We analyzed the teachers' interviews using the grounded theory approach looking at relations between the different educational constructs of the elementary school teachers regarding geometry. We found that the relations between any two of the educational constructs had two directions; which means that the overall relation was mutual. Furthermore, the relations between any two educational constructs were not one-to-one but multi value mappings, for example opposite conceptions of geometry led sometimes to the same teaching method. The article describes the different relation among the various educational constructs regarding geometry and discusses them.