Mathematics teaching in biological sciences and health area courses

doctoral students’ perceptions

Abstract

This paper describes the social representations of doctoral students at the Federal University of Grande Dourados, for the teaching of Mathematics and Statistics in undergraduate courses in Biological Sciences and Health Area. To collect the data, we conducted semi-structured interviews, with ten doctoral students, from February to May 2018, with the application of a script with eight closed questions, considering the theories of Social Representations and Learning Intelligent as theoretical support. The discussion of the result was organized, based on the method of the collective subject discourse and tools of the Qualiquantisoft. The study participants cannot relate the mathematical contents taught in Mathematics and Statistics in their undergraduate courses, with their professional practices and reported that they had difficulties in learning. Besides, students do not perceive the application of mathematical content to Biological Science or Health Science, and they were unanimous in stating that mathematics is an instrument for solving calculations involving biological problems. The social representations presented in the discourse of the collective subject direct us to reflect that in higher education, the teaching of instrumental mathematics still prevails, and little development of comprehension and mathematics relational in the classroom.