PROCEEDINGS OF THE 22ND ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2019
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Investigating student understanding of self-explanation training to improve proof comprehension
Page: 827
Self-explanation is a reading strategy in which readers explain a text to themselves as they encounter new information. Hodds, Alcock, and Inglis (2014) reported proof comprehension gains on students who had been trained to self-explain, when compared to students who had not received this training. We report a multiple case study in which we interviewed undergraduate students in introductory and advanced proof-based courses, to examine their understanding of self-explanation training and their use of this strategy throughout one semester. Preliminary findings indicate that self-explanation made students examine each line of the proof more deliberately, because they knew they would have to hold themselves accountable for figuring out how to explain each line of the proof. However, some students reported almost never using the technique, either because they prioritized the proof techniques demonstrated by their professors, or because they only felt the need to do so with particularly difficult proofs