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Identifying routines in the discourse of undergraduate students when defining

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Abstract

In this paper, we study how undergraduate students define 3D geometrical solids. With this aim, we have identified the routines that are present in the discourse of the students when describing and defining these solids. These routines are one of the properties that characterise the mathematical discourse in the theory of commognition (Sfard 2008). Our results show three different types of routines. The first type is related to the process of describing the solids, the second one to the process of defining the solids and the rest of the routines have a transversal nature. All of them together give us a global vision of the mathematical practice of defining of these undergraduate students. For instance, it seems that some of these students do not have a clear idea of what a definition is. Moreover, there are also differences between the discourse of students when defining 2D figures and the discourse of students when defining 3D solids.

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Funding

This study was partially funded by the VI Plan Propio de Investigación y Transferencia of the Universidad de Sevilla, Spain (grant number IV.4) and the Research Group in Mathematics Education, FQM-226, of the Junta de Andalucía, Spain.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Didáctica de las Matemáticas, Facultad de Ciencias de la Educación, Universidad de Sevilla, Calle Pirotecnia s/n, 41013, Sevilla, Spain

    Aurora Fernández-León, José María Gavilán-Izquierdo, Alfonso J. González-Regaña, Verónica Martín-Molina & Rocío Toscano

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  1. Aurora Fernández-León
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  2. José María Gavilán-Izquierdo
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  3. Alfonso J. González-Regaña
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  4. Verónica Martín-Molina
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  5. Rocío Toscano
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Correspondence to Aurora Fernández-León.

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Fernández-León, A., Gavilán-Izquierdo, J.M., González-Regaña, A.J. et al. Identifying routines in the discourse of undergraduate students when defining. Math Ed Res J 33, 301–319 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13394-019-00301-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13394-019-00301-1

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