Common Misconceptions About Absolute Value and Related Thinking Strategies

This research paper seeks to identify the widespread misconceptions held by pre-service mathematics teachers regarding absolute value and the associated thinking strategies. The researchers constructed a comprehension test consisting of thirty-two items, all based on the concept of absolute value. A total of 60 Mathematics majors enrolled in Jordanian universities took the test. After purposeful selection, interviews were conducted with fifteen of the respondents in order to obtain in-depth information and confirm their written test responses. Upon thorough analysis of the data, it was concluded that most subjects encountered difficult in solving the absolute value equations and that there were clear discrepancies in the definitions of absolute value held by the participants. Moreover, it was found that the common errors committed by the students fell into one of six categories: (i) removing the two absolute value symbols; (ii) focusing deeply on rules; (iii) converting the two absolute value symbols into parentheses; (iv) ignoring the number within the two absolute value bars; (v) lack of algebraic treatments; and (vi) inability to graph the absolute value. These findings indicate that there are fundamental pedagogical errors made during the teaching and learning process for certain maths topics.