Development of visual mathematics literacy scale for elementary education mathematics teacher candidates

The purpose of this study is to develop a valid, reliable, and useful scale for measuring visual mathematics literacy of teacher candidates. To that end, an item pool consisting of 60 items of pentad Likert type is established by making use of resources related to subject and opinions of teacher candidates. In accordance with expert opinions, four of the 60 items were removed from the scale and a 54 items scale form draft was prepared. Draft scale has been applied to 325 students studying in the mathematics teacher programs of Faculty of Education, Cumhuriyet University and Faculty of Education, Dicle University Ziya Gökalp in the first semester of 2014-2015 academic years. As a result of data analysis, a visual mathematics literacy scale (GMOÖ) in pentad Likert type with 37 items is developed. It is observed that 37 items in the final scale are gathered under five factors and total variance ratio explained by these factors is 44.246%. Cronbach alpha internal consistency coefficient of the scale is calculated as 0.904. In the end of the study, a valid and reliable scale to determine the visual mathematics literacy of teacher candidates has been developed.