Analysis of Students ’ Difficulties in Solving Integration

Abstract: Secondary school students often experience difficulty with solving integration problems. In this study, designed to examine such difficulties, data collection involved the use of a six-question test followed by interviews of selected students. With respect to students ’ performance, they had difficulty with questions that involved integration of trigonometric functions and applying integration to evaluate plane areas. The students seemed to focus more on the procedural aspects of integration than on the conceptual aspects. They generally lacked both conceptual and procedural understanding of integration. The largest numbers of errors committed were technical errors which were primarily attributed to the students’ lack of specific mathematical content knowledge