La Utilización de la Historia de la Matemática como introducción al fundamento teórico para mejorar el rendimiento académico de los estudiantes en la Escuela de Ingeniería Automotriz de la Escuela Superior Politécnica de Chimborazo en el período Septiembre 2014-Febrero del 2015

Abstract

This research objective is to determine if the History of Mathematics used as introduction to the theoretical frame, improves academic performance of Higher Algebra students in the Automotive Engineering School, Mechanics Faculty, ESPOCH, in the academic period October 2014-February 2015 applying one month expository classes to two groups, experimental and control, to the first group with 33 students, prior knowledge about the philosophical basis of mathematics is provided through printed and digital biographies, videos, and scientific documents using a virtual classroom with Moodle platform, in order to consolidate knowledge of Higher Algebra in a critical and self-evaluative way to solve problems; in the control group with 42 students traditional classes were taught. The experimental group performance was evaluated and reached 4.61 / 6 average over the control group 4.13 / 6, that compared to a standard z-test (parametric test of hypothetical checking) showed a result of 2.0879 (calculated z)> 1.96 (critical value). The results prove that there is a significant difference in academic performance. It is concluded that when using the History of Mathematics as introduction to the theoretical basis the student achieves significant knowledge.