Research in mathematics and science education reveals a disconnect for students as they attempt to apply their mathematical knowledge to science and engineering. This means that teaching of a mathematical concept is easy for a teacher but learning is difficult for his or her students. With this conclusion in mind, this paper investigates a particular calculus topic that is used frequently in science and engineering: the double integral.. The results of this study describe that certain conceptualizations of the double integral, including the volume under a surface and the values of an anti-derivative, are limited in their ability to help students make sense of contextualized integrals. These focus on understanding the concept of double integral with virtual empirical experiment and APOS theory.