PROCEEDINGS OF THE 22ND ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2019
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Investigating how students from the biological and life sciences solve similar calculus accumulation tasks set in different contexts
Page: 255
Calculus teaching and learning is a topic of great interest in the mathematics education research community. Specifically, the definite integral and accumulation have received quality attention in the past few years (e.g. Jones, 2015; Sealey, 2014). However, even though approximately 30% of our introductory calculus students are planning on careers in the biological and life sciences, little research exists concerning how students from these fields reason about calculus. In this study, task-based interviews were conducted with 12 undergraduate students majoring in the biological and life sciences. Students were asked to complete two similar calculus accumulation tasks, one a traditional kinematics task and the other set in the context of plant growth. Data were analyzed via open coding. Results indicate students interpreted the given information in the tasks differently, they were more likely to view the rate of change curve as representing the total accumulated quantity in the plant growth tasks.