Level of development of mathematical logical thinking in the students of the agricultural areas of the Universidad Francisco de Paula Santander, Ocaña, Colombia

Abstract

The Francisco de Paula Santander branch school in Ocaña, Colombia; especially the zootechnics program, concerned about the low performance of students in the mathematics or related areas. (Especially in the new students), decide to carry out a study that allows determining what is the level of development of logical thinking in the students of the agricultural areas. For it, a mixed research with the focus of exploratory research was implemented. A workshop was applied and designed based on the principles of Feuerstein, which led to the development of different mental and cognitive operations; these workshops allowed to determine elements such as identification, evocation, comparison, analysis, synthesis, classification, deduction, induction, and divergent and inferential reasoning; there are also some basic mathematical operations such as fractions, decimals, mixed numbers, and conversion. In this case, more than 50 students from third semester in zoology classes took the workshop. The results gave a diagnosis, the evidence that the students have not developed the capacity for abstraction, inference, or the application of algorithms. The idea is that the results will design pedagogical strategies that will help improve the academic performance of students in the area of mathematics.