Undergraduate students' conceptual understanding on rational inequalities

Abstract

Rational inequalities are in part of algebraic inequality problems. Ability to solve the problems related to this type of inequality can be brought by the decent understanding about algebraic logic and manipulation. This study aims to investigate undergraduate students' conceptual understanding on dealing with rational inequality tasks. In this analysis, we considered indicators of mathematical conceptual understanding in order to develop an instrument including five tasks. The tasks were administered to ten first-year undergraduate students in mathematics education. Then, we analyzed students' solution to indicate their difficulties and misconceptions. We underlined two conclusions. First, the participating students must reconsider their conceptual understanding related to rational inequality topic, especially on translating graphical situations into the algebraic situations and vice-versa. Second, the lack of students' abilities related to mathematical conceptual understanding indicators can be viewed as the sources of revealed students' difficulties and misconceptions. We also summarize the potential difficulties and misconceptions categorized by their sources.