A Study on the Understanding and Errors of the Logarithmic Function in High School Students

고등학교 학생들의 로그함수에 대한 이해도 및 오류에 관한 연구

The purpose of this study was to examine high school second graders' understanding of the basic nature of logarithm, the major type of error they made about logarithmic function and the cause of such an error, and to seek ways to instruct it better. For that purpose, three research questions were posed: 1. Investigate how much high school students in their second year comprehend the nature of logarithm. 2. Analyze what type of error they make about logarithmic function. 3. Analyze the cause of their error according to the selected error models and how it could be taught more efficiently. The findings of this study were as below: First, the natural science students had a better understanding of the basic nature of logarithm than the academic students. What produced the widest gap between the two groups' understanding was applying the nature of logarithm to the given problems, and what caused the smallest gap was the definition of logarithm and the condition of base. Second, the academic students had a poorer understanding of the basic nature of logarithmic function graph and of applying the nature of logarithm to the given problems. Third, the natural science students didn't comprehend well the basic nature of logarithmic function graph, the nature of characteristics and mantissa. Fourth, for all the students from academic and natural science courses, the most common errors were caused by the poor understanding of theorem or nature of the ［E4] model. Fifth, the academic students made more frequent errors due to the unfamiliar signs of the ［El］ model, the imperfect understanding of theorem or nature of the ［E4］ model, and the technical part of the ［E6］ model. Sixth, the natural science students made more frequent errors because of the improper problem interpretation of the ［E2］ model and the logically improper inference of the ［E3］ model.