PROCEEDINGS OF THE 17TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2014
Denver, Colorado
Students’ Struggle With the Temporal Order of Delta and Epsilon Within the Formal Definition of a Limit
Page: 367
Studies about students’ understanding of the formal definition of a limit, or the epsilon delta definition suggest that the temporal order of delta and epsilon is an obstacle in learning the formal definition. While such difficulty has been widely documented, patterns of students’ reasoning are largely unknown. This study investigates the degree of difficulty students have with the temporal order, along with justifications that students provide to support their claim. diSessa’s Knowledge in Pieces provides a suitable framework to explore the context specificity of students’ knowledge as well as the potential productivity of their prior knowledge in learning.