The basic concepts involved in the equation of mechanical harmonic waves: their treatment in Physics textbooks used in undergraduate courses

Abstract

In undergraduate courses, the study of transverse mechanical waves is approached by modeling them mathe-matically through a harmonic function of two variables, which involves characteristic parameters whose nature is not immediate for students. In this study, and through a content analysis, we investigated if the authors of physics books frequently used in undergraduate courses present and explain the physical origin of those pa-rameters correctly, in order to make the conceptualization of the phenomenon easier for students.
The results obtained show that many authors of the textbooks analyzed do not explicitly refer to the nature of the magnitudes and parameters involved, or relate them to the perturbing source and properties of the propagation medium. We mention recommendations for teachers to design didactic strategies that would favor the understanding of the wave phenomenon and its propagation.