PROCEEDINGS OF THE 15TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION (Vol 2)
2012
Portland, Oregon
Student Learning of Key Concepts in Sequences and Series
Page: 2-162
This study examines students’ foundational understanding and misconceptions of infinite repeating decimals in a variety of calculus courses and the roles of instruction in improving knowledge. We discuss Tzur and Simon’s (2004) Reflection on Activity-Effect Relationships Model for student understanding and its application to the survey used in the current study. We examine a variety of matched questions concerning .777... and .999... and use these results for both performance measures and indicators of higher levels of student cognition. We look at the influence of different instructional practices, which include conceptual discussions and related group works, and their impact on student understanding. Our results indicate that these instructional practices can significantly improve student performance and understanding, even among mathematically talented students.