RUME 25
2023
Omaha, Nebraska
Opportunities to Learn Provided by a Commonly Used Business Calculus Textbook
Page: 1321
Contributing to the growing body of research on opportunities to learn provided by undergraduate mathematics textbooks, this study reports on the analysis of optimization examples given in a commonly used business calculus textbook in the United States. Findings of this analysis indicate that the textbook consistently encourages students to interpret critical numbers and extrema, in addition to encouraging students to verify whether or not critical numbers produced minimum/maximum values of the objective functions from which they were determined. The analysis further revealed that the textbook rarely encourages students to include units of extrema, provides limited opportunities for students to reason about objective functions that have more than one critical number, and provides minimal opportunities for students to reason about absolute extrema problems, respectively. Recommendations for different stakeholders, including business calculus textbook authors and business calculus instructors, are included.