A Study of the Construction of the Notion of Parabola in Engineering Students (#1598)

Authors

Flores Manghiert, Ray Wladimir

Vigo Ingar, Katia

Rojas Huamán, Cristian Félix

Torres Rivera, Julia Lizet

Abstract

This article is an excerpt from a master's degree research. In which both the creation, the a priori and a posteriori analysis of the problem situation presented here was extracted from a master's research work [9] whose advisor was the second author of this work. The need to investigate the parabola as a geometric locus arises from observing the difficulties present in its study by engineering students during their first year of studies. This mathematical concept is usually taught by first presenting the theoretical part to continue with a series of repetitive exercises, giving priority to algebraic operations and leaving aside the initial concepts of locus. Likewise, these exercises are far from being significant situations for future engineers, such as the geometric design of a satellite dish. Therefore, the purpose of this research is for students to discover, build and apply concepts linked to the parabola in an engineering environment. concepts related to the parable. In this sense, this research aims to analyze the interactions of first-year students of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at a public university in Lima-Peru in the face of the proposed problem situation regarding the construction of the notion of parabola as a place. geometric. The experimental part was carried out with university students whose ages range between 17 and 19 years, using Didactic Engineering as a methodology, which allowed the a priori analysis to be compared with the a posteriori analysis. A bibliographic survey has been carried out to have an overview of the main research related to the parabola as part of the conics and using the dynamic software GeoGebra. As part of this research, it was possible to observe the actions used by the students when facing the problem situations posed, as well as the formulations developed by them, to subsequently justify and validate their results through different semiotic representations, which contributed to the construction of the parable. as a geometric place.