Conceptual Questioning in Mathematics Teacher Education: Transforming Routine Questions

Conceptual questioning promotes deep thinking by supporting students’ transition from procedural to conceptual understanding. This study investigates the ability of pre-service elementary mathematics teachers to transform routine questions into conceptual ones within a problem-solving strategies course. The participants were 70 senior pre-service teachers who were asked to reformulate four routine questions at a conceptual level, and the resulting questions were evaluated using a rubric to determine overall performance. The findings indicate that structured problem-posing activities effectively supported the development of conceptual question-posing skills, although participants experienced challenges related to creativity, clarity, and solvability. These results highlight the importance of integrating systematic conceptual question-creation activities into teacher education programs to enhance pre-service teachers’ instructional competence.