Education Commons^™

Student Understanding Of Limit And Continuity At A Point: A Look Into Four Potentially Problematic Conceptions, Miriam Lynne Amatangelo

Theses and Dissertations

Mathematics students and teachers are familiar with the difficulty of learning and teaching concepts of continuity and limits. Research has expanded our knowledge of how students think about these concepts, including different conceptions and metaphors students use to reason about continuity and limits at a point. From the literature I have identified four potentially problematic conceptions (PPCs) students may use when reasoning about limit and continuity at a point. Questionnaires were administered to 861 BYU students in various mathematics courses to determine how prevalent and persistent the PPCs are among the students in each course. Interviews were conducted with nine …