Abstract

MURO, Claudia Rosario; CAMARENA, Patricia  and  FLORES, Rosa del Carmen. Scope of Vergnaud's theory in the representation of a complex engineering problem. Relime [online]. 2007, vol.10, n.3, pp.401-419. ISSN 2007-6819.

With the aim of implementing tasks to help a group of students to construct the meaning of the convergence of the Fourier series, this research studies its relationship with a problem concerning situations that describe a mass transfer phenomenon until equilibrium is reached. As they performed the tasks, an analysis was made of the group's representations on how they understand and solve problems which touch on this mathematical object, recalling aspects mentioned by Vergnaud in studies on basic operations in primary education. The results bring to light isolated conceptions in both contexts and difficulties in knowledge of differential equations which govern the phenomenon, as well as the consequence of the Fourier series.

Keywords : convergence; Fourier series; mass transfer; representations.