This study concerned limits of sequences. Since limits are such an important mathematical concept for students to "understand," the major purposes of this study were to: (1) Develop a meaning of "the understanding of the limit of a sequence" based upon students' behavior. (2) Construct an instrument for measuring the understanding described in 1. An additional purpose was to: (3) Investigate subskills related to understanding the limit concept. / A good test for measuring the understanding in "1" would prove useful in helping teachers at various levels to answer the question, "Do my students understand limits?" as opposed to just finding limits. / Naturally, such an endeavor would require some thought on what indeed it means to understand limits. Prior to this study such a definition of understanding limits appeared to be lacking. / Thus, behavioral objectives were established by identifying the main features of limits and gaining a consensus from well-qualified professionals whose work involves an intimate knowledge of limits. / Test development involved constructing an initial version of the limits instrument, and then performing many revisions so that certain standards of measurement theory were satisfied. The final version of the instrument was administered to 263 subjects who had studied limits. The results for this 53 item test were reliability, alpha = 0.817; mean, 35.9 (67.7%); and standard deviation, 6.99 (13.2%). Validity checks were made on the instrument by comparing performance on this instrument and other related measures. / This study also involved identifying specific subskills related to understanding limits. This is noteworthy in that a variety of illustrious professors shared their views with regard to these subskills. Linear relationships were found between scores received on the limits instrument and scores on five subskills test. / Finally, specific information gleaned from the analyses performed in this study would directly benefit classroom teachers. Students did poorly on absolute value, distance, inequality, and segments or intervals. They do not have a good formal level of understanding limits, although they did fine at seemingly lower levels of understanding. Repeating decimals caused students confusion. Also some specific misconceptions of which teachers should be aware, surfaced during this study. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-12, Section: A, page: 3619. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_75240 |
| Contributors | BRATINA, TUIREN A., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 393 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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