Understanding Logarithm: What are the Difficulties That Students Have?

Abstract

This study aims at determining students' difficulties in understanding logarithm material. The subject of this study are 10th grade students. The type of research is qualitative descriptive, and it applied several steps in the form of providing test to the students, determining the difficulties and interviewing students who had difficulty on the material. The result of the study showed that there were several difficulties such as applying definition, determining logarithmic properties to solve problems, applying logarithmic properties and applying the prerequisite material. These difficulties are due to the lack of understanding of logarithmic definitions, the lack of ability to see the facts relating to problems, over-focus on facts of rote and technical procedures, relying on improper intuition, and inconsistencies in symbolic writing and inaccuracy.

Subject competency and teacher knowledge: An exploration of second-year pre-service mathematics teachers’ difficulties in solving logarithmic problems using basic rules for logarithm

“…While the literature provides a broad overview of the difficulties students confront in solving logarithmic problems and relates them to mistakes in manipulating logarithmic expressions and to challenges in understanding the meaning of the logarithmic concept (Dintarini, 2018), the current study's findings show that incorrect notions of logarithm, due to poor prior understanding and knowledge, also contribute to such errors. Aziz et al (2017) aver that students make common mistakes due to misconceptions about logarithm, arithmetical problems, and misuse of algebra concepts.…”

“…Logarithm has a reputation for being difficult (Dintarini, 2018). This is probably because of its presentation as the inverse of exponential functions (Weber, 2016).…”

“…Students experience many difficulties in learning logarithm, which include, for an example, the mistakes they make in manipulating logarithmic expressions (Espedal, 2015). Other difficulties might include experiences of misunderstanding the meaning of the logarithmic concept, issue of pervasiveness of inverse definition of logarithm, and expression of logarithm as numbers (Díaz-Berrios & Martínez-Planell, 2022;Dintarini, 2018;Frketic et al, 2018). At high school levels, there are also the challenges of students' poor prior exposures to logarithm (Okoye-Ogbalu, 2019) and teachers' poor ability to make explicit the meaning of the symbol (Espedal, 2015).…”

Relazione etica degli studenti con un documento tratto dalla storia della matematica

“…Quasi tutti gli elaborati prodotti dagli studenti hanno mostrato difficoltà di vario tipo nella gestione del concetto di logaritmo. L'analisi condotta nel presente articolo non intendeva focalizzare questi aspetti a proposito dei quali si rinvia a Dintarini (2018). Alcuni degli errori presenti negli elaborati riguardanti l'interpretazione del documento sono di natura linguistica, come ad esempio in Gaia: «Per trovare il logaritmo in base n di un numero y vuol dire trovare quel numero x che elevato alla base n mi dia y» per intendere che la base n va elevata all'esponente x.…”

Factor Analysis of Students' Difficulties Understanding the Concept of Logarithms at SMA Negeri 2 Percontohan Karang Baru Aceh Tamiang

“…Since the indirect definition is still valid in algebra textbooks despite the many problems reported in the educational literature, it may be a major cause of student difficulties. (Dintarini, 2018) found that some students did not fully understand the meaning of logarithms. In the end, students had difficulty applying the definition of logarithms to problems.…”