Approaching knowledge for teaching measure estimation in Primary school

In this contribution we present a study of certain aspects of mathematical knowledge for teaching that teachers possess about the concept of measure estimation. We seek to understand how teachers define and exemplify this concept, given that it is not clearly defined in the literature of mathematical education, neither is it clearly differentiated from that of general estimation, which includes arithmetic tasks. We survey 112 practising school teachers during a continuing teacher training course that took place in Santiago de Chile in 2003. By means of a qualitative-descriptive analysis, we note that the disciplinary knowledge on the concept of measure estimation is poorly developed, implying that teachers' knowledge for education may not be correct nor complete.