On the Teaching of Poisson Distribution in Engineering Education

In the present study, two methodologies related to the teaching of Poisson’s distribution were examined in the field of engineering education. The first methodology is based on a problematic way around the content domain, considering this distribution as approximation to Binomial distribution. The second methodology, based on the dialectic relations of induction-deduction, goes along a focus of Poisson’s process. Both ways apply in two engineering careers, for the sake of evaluating the effect that they cause in learning. The learning is focused as developer, in the sense of integrating the processes of internalization and exteriorization of knowledge. The learning of probability distributions gets better in both experimental groups, but only upon the second way it is appreciated a statistically significant effects. The empiric evidences do not reveal superiority of a methodology in relation to the other. From a gnoseological perspective, it showed that the logical and mathematical development is less determining than the method established from the didactic point of view.