On problematic aspects in learning trigonometry

ABSTRACT

In this paper, research on some problematic aspects high school students have in learning trigonometry is presented. It is based on making sense of mathematics through perception, operation and reason in the case of trigonometry. We analyzed students' understanding of trigonometric concepts in the frame of triangle and circle trigonometry contexts, as well as the transition between these two contexts. In the conclusion, we present some new problematic aspects we noticed.

The research was carried out with two groups of high school students, one of them at the beginning of their trigonometry learning (17 years old) and the other at the end of their high school education (19 years old). The students were given a questionnaire similar to that of Chin and Tall, and we analyzed the students' response. In our research, we noticed that students have difficulties with properties of periodicity and the fact that trigonometric functions are not one-to-one. In addition, there is poor understanding of radian measure and a lack of its connection to the unit circle.

KEYWORDS:

• Trigonometry
• triangle
• unit circle
• high school students
• problematic met-before concepts
• concept map

SUBJECT CLASSIFICATION CODES:

• 97 – Mathematics education

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to express their gratitude to the reviewers, whose valuable remarks and comments improved the revised version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.