Investigating Number Sense in Teacher Education: Evidence from Indonesian Prospective Teachers' Understanding of Fractions and Decimals

Despite its essential place, the concept of numbers is challenging for children and adults. However, few studies have examined prospective teachers' number sense, specifically regarding fractions and decimals, leaving a research gap. Thus, this study aimed to investigate prospective teachers' performance in fraction and decimal number sense through a written test and interview with prospective teachers from two universities in Indonesia. The results showed that prospective teachers’ number sense was considered poor, relying predominantly on rule-based strategies. The least successful components were benchmark and estimation skills, as well as the understanding of operations, while the strongest were the ability to recognize and manipulate numbers by size and order. This finding underscores the need to improve Indonesian teacher education programs. Curriculum modification and teaching interventions can be implemented to support prospective teachers' number sense. While context-specific, the findings may inform future research and curriculum development in similar educational settings across ASEAN.