Senior School Students' Understanding Of Periodicity Of The Function

This essay interpreted the results of a research conducted Grade 1 students in three senior middle schools in Yueqing with regard to their comprehension on the periodicity of the function. Questionnaire and individual interviews are conducted in this study. The purpose of the study is to find out students'difficulties in comprehending the periodicity of the function and to provide some suggestions for textbooks editing and practical teaching.The questionnaire is given to 304 Grade 1 students in three senior middle schools in Yueqing. Based on the information obtained from the questionnaire, 12 students and 6 of the students'mathematics teachers are interviewed. The questions of this study are as follows: 1,What problem do the students exist on the comprehension about the periodicity of the function?2,How should students tell whether a function is periodic or not? What are the difficulties that students meet while dealing with the periodicity of functions.3,How should teaching material and teachers deal with the periodicity of functions? As the research indicates, students'understanding of the concept of periodicity isn't accurate enough. Their methods to judge periodicity and calculate the positive minimum of a periodicity is quite simple. Lots of students only know how to use formula to get the answer. Even fewer students know how to make use of periodicity to simplify the solution Many teachers just read it item by item from the textbook ,seldom offering instructions or corrections accordingly.Thus, some revelant suggestions are offered in the essay according to what I discover in the research .