High school students’ understanding of the function concept

This paper is a study of part of the Algebra Project's program for underrepresented high school students from the lowest quartile of academic achievement, social and economic status. The study focuses on students’ learning the concept of function. The curriculum and pedagogy are part of an innovative, experimental approach designed and implemented by the Algebra Project. The instructional treatment took place over 7 weeks during the Junior Year of 15 students from our target population. Immediately after instruction, a written instrument was administered followed, several weeks later, by in-depth interviews. The results are that many of our participants achieved a level of knowledge and understanding of functions on a par with beginning college students, including preservice teachers, as reported in the literature. Many conceptual difficulties that have been reported in the research literature were not as prevalent for our participants and some of them were capable of solving difficult problems involving composition of functions. We conclude that, with appropriate pedagogy, it is possible for students in the Algebra Project's target population to learn substantial and non-trivial mathematics at the high school level, and that the Algebra Project approach is one example of such a pedagogy.