Pre-service teachers’ flexibility and performance in solving Fermi problems

Fermi problems are real-context estimation tasks that are suitable for introducing open-ended problems in primary school education. To ensure their effective introduction in the classroom, teachers must have adequate proficiency to deal with them. One of the key aspects of problem-solving proficiency is flexibility, but there are few studies on flexibility in solving real-context problems. This study, based on an analysis of the errors made by 224 prospective teachers when solving a Fermi problem sequence, establishes performance levels. In addition, we define levels of flexibility in using multiple solutions across the sequence, which allows us to address the main objective: to study the relationship between performance and flexibility. We found that there are significant relationships between flexibility levels and the number and severity of errors made. Encouraging flexibility in prospective teachers may be an efficient way to improve their performance in solving real-context problems.