Login | Register

College level students’ understanding of functions in the context of modelling dynamic situations

Title:

College level students’ understanding of functions in the context of modelling dynamic situations

Turan, Devrim (2021) College level students’ understanding of functions in the context of modelling dynamic situations. Masters thesis, Concordia University.

[thumbnail of Turan_MA_S2021.pdf]
Preview
Text (application/pdf)
Turan_MA_S2021.pdf - Accepted Version
Available under License Spectrum Terms of Access.
3MB

Abstract

One of the critical tasks in early mathematical education is teaching the concept of function and its different representations through diverse examples and dynamic tasks. This task is meant to enable students to develop meaningful and powerful constructions between functional concepts and procedures, to conceptualize a function as a generalized process that accepts input and produces output and, therefore, to build essential conceptual and analytical thinking of functions that are necessary to form a covariational conception of function. This is particularly useful for College level students enrolled in Calculus courses who need a strong covariational conception of function to further succeed in mathematics courses.
My thesis reveals that, from a sample group of college level students enrolled in Calculus courses at Concordia University, many participants do not have a strong conceptual or/and analytical thinking of functions that is essential in meaningfully modeling dynamic situations. Majority of students, who have obstacle(s) or/and pseudo-thought(s) or/and misconception(s) due to them having weak analytical/conceptual understanding of functions, do not move flexibly between different representations of functions and fail to view a function as a process that maps values of one variable to values of another variable. Consequently, these students generally do not reason dynamic functional situations covariationally at a higher level. This outcome questions the readiness of Calculus students for subsequent mathematics courses, as well as the effectiveness of prior school curriculum in mathematics education.

Divisions:Concordia University > Faculty of Arts and Science > Mathematics and Statistics
Item Type:Thesis (Masters)
Authors:Turan, Devrim
Institution:Concordia University
Degree Name:M.A.
Program:Mathematics
Date:March 2021
Thesis Supervisor(s):Stancu, Dr. Alina
ID Code:988060
Deposited By: DEVRIM TURAN
Deposited On:29 Jun 2021 20:55
Last Modified:29 Jun 2021 20:55
All items in Spectrum are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved. The use of items is governed by Spectrum's terms of access.

Repository Staff Only: item control page

Downloads per month over past year

Research related to the current document (at the CORE website)
- Research related to the current document (at the CORE website)
Back to top Back to top