Resignification of the trigonometric ratio in first-year Engineering students

Abstract

We report a design research based on Socioepistemological Theory (ST), which answers the question: What is the process of resignification of the trigonometric ratio in first-year engineering students in a scenario of the social construction of knowledge? With the transversal analysis of nesting of practices and the recognition of the uses of mathematical knowledge, the process of resignification was identified in three categories. These characterize when students (1) perform mathematically in a different way besides school mathematics, (2) respond with tools that go beyond memory processes, and (3) evoke some related notion. In addition, it is recognized that the models (scale or sketch) of Trigonometry tasks allow a back and forth between the simulated object, the analysis of the model, and the numerical calculation; also, that to distinguish the trigonometric relation from a proportional relation, a covariate study of the angle-string relation of objects in different locations is necessary.