Análisis del proceso de aprendizaje de los conceptos de función y extremo de una función en estudiantes de economía

a research into the field of mathematical education, concerning the difficulties in the teaching-learning process of the concepts of function and extreme points of functions on economics undergraduate students at the universidad veracruzana in mexico, is reported. the paper takes as its theoretical framework the main contributions of the research program known as advanced mathematical thinking, and its conclusions agree with those of previous studies (janvier, 1987; leinhardt et al., 1990; azcárate, 1992; artigue, 1995; fabra & deulofeu, 2000). the authors detect difficulties regarding interpretation and construction tasks related to the concept of function, then state that the student's cognitive structure is more related to some characteristics of the function than to the concept itself. the concept of extreme point of a function is explained by the students, in some cases, by means of the relative position of this point inside a neighborhood of values and on the basis of graphical representations.