Students’ Understanding of the Definite Integral Concept

Abstract

This study investigated students’ procedural and conceptual knowledge of the definite integral.Twenty five students enrolled in one section of an undergraduate Calculus II class participated in this study. Data were collected from a test that was conducted during the fourth week of the semester. The test aimed at collecting information about the students' procedural and conceptual knowledge of the definite integral..  The results indicated that the students’ most dominant knowledge was the procedural one, and that they had limited understanding of the definite integral. Their abilities to represent the concept in different ways were limited; they could represent the concept using only two different representations.