University students' discourse about irreducible polynomials

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyse, following Sfard’s theoretical framework, the students’ discourse about irreducible polynomials in order to understand their difficulties. Through the students’ explanations, given during the interviews conducted after carrying out the questionnaire, it is possible to study which processes were triggered by them to solve the task. In particular, we focused on the concept of the irreducible polynomials and the link between the roots of the polynomial and its reducibility in university students