DOMAIN OF MATHEMATICAL FUNCTIONS IN STUDENTS OF ENGINEERING OF UNIVERSIDAD CATÓLICA ANDRÉS BELLO

• Main Author: Liliana Lupo
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: Fundación Unamuno 2005-11-01
• Series: Revista Orbis
• Online Access: http://ojs.revistaorbis.org.ve/index.php/orbis/article/view/298

The objective of the investigation was to determine the handling level of topics related to mathematical functions (Percentage, proportionality, functions and bijections) in students of engineering of the first semester At the Catholic University Andrés Bello. We applied a mixed test of 19 questions, to a sample of 244 students of the different schools of the Faculty. The main results obtained in this study were: 1) Students repeating the courses obtain greater number of correct answers that the new students, 2) the smaller number of successes are obtained in the questions related to bijections, 3) the concept of proportionality between two variables presents significant errors, 4) the students do not conceive the bijection inside the concept of function and 5) the bijections schemas are easier to reproduce than the corresponding to non bijective functions. The results of the study reveal that the teaching of functions is not a simple task, for which is necessary to develop plans of studies that help the students to consolidate this concept.