Calculus is a required course in most engineering programmes and is intended to provide students with tools they will use throughout the rest of their training. However, research seems to indicate that calculus is not very prevalent in the engineering workplace or in university engineering courses. To shed some light on how calculus is actually used in engineering programmes, we analysed two courses (Strength of Materials and Electricity and Magnetism) to examine their use of integrals. We first conducted a praxeological analysis examining the introduction of two topics (bending moments and electric potential) in the courses’ textbooks before interviewing the teachers of each course to compare their praxeologies with those of the books. Our results show that integrals are used to introduce engineering notions in both courses, with praxeologies that combine elements from mathematics and engineering but that do not call upon calculus techniques to any great extent. Moreover, integrals do not factor highly in students’ assessments in either course, which implies that students may pass these courses without any knowledge of integrals as taught in their calculus courses.

微积分是大多数工程课程的必修课，旨在为学生提供他们将在其余培训中使用的工具。然而，研究似乎表明微积分在工程工作场所或大学工程课程中并不是很普遍。为了阐明微积分在工程课程中的实际应用，我们分析了两门课程（材料强度和电磁学）来检查它们对积分的使用。我们首先进行了行为学分析，检查了课程教科书中对两个主题（弯矩和电势）的介绍，然后再采访了每门课程的教师，将他们的行为学与书籍中的行为学进行了比较。我们的结果表明，积分用于在两门课程中引入工程概念，行为学结合了数学和工程学的元素，但在很大程度上不要求微积分技术。此外，在任何一门课程中，积分都不会在学生的评估中占据重要地位，这意味着学生可以在没有任何微积分课程中教授的积分知识的情况下通过这些课程。