Patricia Sureda y María Rita Otero
Abstract: This paper describes the process of conceptualization of four groups of pupils in high school (121 students around the age of 15-16 years), and the way they study the conceptual field of exponential functions with a dynamic of study, in which the first aim is the participation of the pupil in the construction of knowledge. The theoretical constructs proposed by Vergnaud’s Conceptual Fields Theory (1990, 1996, 2007a, 2007b, 2011) are specially used to describe the answers of some pupils when a problem that is solved through means of exponential models is proposed. The analysis of the protocols shows a process of conceptualization, linked to the different systems of representation of the exponential function, which is possible to describe by five stages.
Keywords: concept, systems of representation, exponential function, teaching, secondary.
