RUME 26
2024
Omaha, Nebraska
Student’s Understanding of the Time Series and State Space Trajectory of the Solution of a Differential Equation
Page: 1369
The study of modeling and dynamical systems is becoming increasingly important in the life sciences. The concepts of time series and trajectory are central to understand the behavior of a dynamical system described by differential equations. A critical skill is to be able to navigate between these two types of representations as they provide complementary information. In this exploratory study, I use the covariational reasoning framework to analyze to what extent students who have taken an undergraduate course on modeling have mastered the skill of sketching the trajectory associated with a time series, and vice versa. Analysis of interviews show that students do not systematically exhibit the same level of covariational reasoning when completing these related tasks. I discuss the influence of teaching practices.