Proceedings of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education · Volume 1
Alejandro S. González-Martín, Mathilde Hitier, Jonathan Morcos
Université de Montréal
⬇ Download PDFThe mathematical training of engineers and their practical application of mathematics have received increased attention from researchers over the past 15 years. In this paper, we present results from the pilot phase of a survey that will eventually be distributed to a large sample of engineers. Drawing on elements of the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic (ATD), we focus on tasks in which mathematics is explicitly or implicitly involved, and on the ways participants complete these tasks. Drawing on responses from ten engineers, we find that three report not needing any university mathematics in their professional practice. Seven carry out tasks that implicitly involve mathematics and seven carry out tasks (albeit infrequently) in which the use of mathematics is explicit. All participants use software to perform these tasks.
Mathematics in engineeringmathematics in the workplaceuniversity mathematicsAnthropological Theory of the Didactic (ATD)survey