The Students’ Perspective of Geometry Teaching and Learning in High School

The purpose of this article is to present the results obtained from a questionnaire applied to Costa Rican high school students, in order to know their perspectives about geometry teaching and learning. The results show that geometry classes in high school education have been based on a traditional system of teaching, where the teacher presents the theory; he presents examples and exercises that should be solved by students, which emphasize in the application and memorization of formulas. As a consequence, visualization processes, argumentation and justification don’t have a preponderant role. Geometry is presented to students like a group of definitions, formulas, and theorems completely far from their reality and, where the examples and exercises don’t possess any relationship with their context. As a result, it is considered not important, because it is not applicable to real life situations. Also, the students consider that, to be successful in geometry, it is necessary to know how to use the calculator, to carry out calculations, to have capacity to memorize definitions, formulas and theorems, to possess capacity to understand the geometric drawings and to carry out clever exercises to develop a practical ability.