An Activity Theory approach in explaining engineering students’ difficulties with university mathematics

• Marinos Anastasakis ^[2] ; Maria Zakynthinaki ^[3] ; Rodrigo Trujillo-González ^[4] ; Israel García-Alonso ^[1] ; Konstantinos Petridis ^[5]
  1. [1] Universidad de La Laguna

     Universidad de La Laguna

     San Cristóbal de La Laguna, España

     
  2. [2] University Crete
  3. [3] Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH)
  4. [4] Hellenic Mediterranean University
  5. [5] Hellenic Mediterranean University Research Centre (HMURC)

  Mostrar afiliaciones +
• Localización: International journal of mathematical education in science and technology, ISSN 0020-739X, Vol. 53, Nº. 6, 2022, págs. 1571-1587
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • In this paper we explore the difficulties engineering undergraduates encounter with tertiary mathematics. Results from our survey (N = 71) show that students in our sample face issues mostly related to the challenging nature of university mathematics, the absence of worked examples during lectures and the discontinuity of school and university mathematics curricula. By using third generation Activity Theory, we were able to interpret the identified difficulties as contradictions emerging between the school and university activity systems as well as within the university activity system, and we argue that these difficulties can be treated as stemming from the structural characteristics the two activity systems have.