A MISMATCH BETWEEN CURRICULUM DESIGN AND STUDENT LEARNING: THE CASE OF THE FUNCTION CONCEPT

This paper presents an analysis of the function concept. Although it is seen by many as a fundamental building block of the mathematical curriculum (NCTM, 1989), in practice, few students grasp the full extent of the notion of function linking across its various different representations. The data presented here comes from a research project at Warwick University, drawing data from schools in Turkey. It analyses data from questionnaires in two studies, together with interviews from nine students representing a spectrum of performance from the small minority who have an overall grasp of the function concept to the majority of students giving limited responses that do not connect across the various modes of representation.