Taylor’s Formula, Limited Development, and Development of Power Series: A Study of the Knowledge of University Professors in Training

This paper reports the results of three questionnaires applied to sixty-seven students preparing to become university-level mathematics teachers; the questionnaires were focused on knowing their conceptions and their mastery of the representations of functions in the development of power series. The theoretical and methodological background rests on the Mathematics Teacher’s Specialised Knowledge (MTSK), specifically in the domain: Mathematical Knowledge (MK). As a result of the analysis of the responses to the questionnaires, it was identified that the notion of development of power series played an important role as a means of justification and that, from the three notions addressed (Taylorʼs Formula, limited development, development of power series), this was the most prevalent in the mind of the students. These results will be used as the starting point for the development of proposals that improve the teaching and learning of the subject of study.