Crisólogo Dolores Flores
Javier García-García
Angélica Gálvez-Pacheco
Abstract. This article reports one research conducted with the aim of studying
the stability and conceptual change about some rates of change in high school
students. For this purpose, a learning sequence was designed, implemented, and
evaluated, in an upper secondary education school. A pre-post assessment was
used to evaluate the results of the study. The students’ conceptions were compared.
Changes entail transiting from interpreting speed in a distance-time graph
as “a point” or as “a magnitude of the distance” to the geometrical conception
of “vertical displacement” with respect to “horizontal displacement”; from being
fixed by the formula v = d/t to the use of the difference quotient v = Ds/Dt.
Stability was noted in the conception associated with the ordinates of greater
magnitude of a graphical time-height, as they represent the “faster growth”.
Keywords: Conceptual Change, Stability, Rate of Change, Speed, Rapidity.
DOI: 10.24844/EM2902.05
