O significado das representações da função afim para alunos do 8.º ano de escolaridade

Abstract

This article discusses how students in 8th grade (13–15 years old) came in the transition between representations of functions like y = ax + b, and what difficulties they experience. In the study that formed the basis of this article was followed a qualitative research methodology, an interpretive paradigm, based on two case studies. Students mobilized various representations of functions, especially when they could be transformed into another, where the algebraic representation gained from the graphical representation. The tabular representation, and in particular its transition to an algebraic representation, was a complicated process when students i) had to work with a situation close to “real”, where they worked with discrete points and in the table was not included explicitly the ordered pair with abscissa zero, and ii) when the data presented in a table the ordered pair of abscissa zero was not the first on the list. The use of software technologies with multiple representations, as well as an active and systematic work among the various representations, positively influenced the learning of these students.