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Students’ perceptions of institutional practices: the case of limits of functions in college level Calculus courses

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Abstract

This paper presents a study of instructors’ and students’ perceptions of the knowledge to be learned about limits of functions in a college level Calculus course, taught in a North American college institution. I modeled these perceptions using a theoretical framework that combines elements of the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic, developed in mathematics education, with a framework for the study of institutions developed in political science. While a model of the instructors’ perceptions could be formulated mostly in mathematical terms, a model of the students’ perceptions included an eclectic mixture of mathematical, social, cognitive, and didactic norms. I describe the models and illustrate them with examples from the empirical data on which they have been built.

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Notes

  1. The first step in τ1 appears in the textbooks when strategies of calculating limits are described in general. However, this step is omitted in most worked out examples in the textbooks and in solutions written by teachers and made available to students. The same is true for Mathematical Praxeology MP2.

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  1. Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Concordia University, 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8, Canada

    Nadia Hardy

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  1. Nadia Hardy
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Hardy, N. Students’ perceptions of institutional practices: the case of limits of functions in college level Calculus courses. Educ Stud Math 72, 341–358 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-009-9199-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-009-9199-8

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