PROCEEDINGS OF THE 20TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2017
San Diego, California
Conceptual understanding of differential calculus: A comparative study
Page: 1585
The research community shares a concern for students’ conceptual understanding of calculus and commonly advocates for student-centered approaches as a way to promote it. In this study, we investigated the effect of different instructional approaches on 151 undergraduate students’ conceptual understanding of differential calculus in context-specific, natural settings. We collected data on the pre- and posttest of the Calculus Concept Inventory in three classes. In one class, most of the time was dedicated to conceptually oriented problem solving, another class implemented practice problems for students, and the third class was a traditional lecture class. The results showed that there was no difference in students’ conceptual understanding of differential calculus controlling for their initial understanding. Thus, our findings do not support the research that advocates for student-centered instruction suggesting that the approaches’ implementation and contextual differences may be sources of variation in their effectiveness.