Knowledge diagnosis of trigonometric functions in engineering students

Most students who begin university studies in Mexico do not have basic knowledge of mathematical objects, which causes students to fail due to poor performance. Therefore, the objective of this paper was to diagnose the prior knowledge of trigonometric sine and cosine functions in engineering students of a university in order to use this information in a didactic proposal that improves learning in such mathematical objects. For this purpose, an evaluation instrument was designed using the conceptual framework of Duval's semiotic representations and it was applied to a representative sample of 42 randomly chosen engineering students. It was found that the students have strengths in the cognitive activity of Treatment of the Graphic Register and in the Conversion of the Tabular Register to a graph. But they have deficiencies in the Treatment of the Tabular Register and in the Conversions from a Graphical to an Algebraic Register, and also from the Algebraic to the Tabular Register, both in the sine function, and only from the Tabular to the Algebraic in the case of the cosine function. It is recommended to enhance this knowledge in a teaching proposal to improve learning performance outcomes.