PROCEEDINGS OF THE 15TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION (Vol 2)
2012
Portland, Oregon
Do Generic Proofs Improve Proof Comprehension?
Page: 2-595
In undergraduate mathematics courses, proofs are regularly employed to convey mathematics to students. However, research has shown that students find proofs to be difficult to comprehend. Some mathematicians and mathematics educators attribute this confusion to the formal and linear style in which proofs are generally written. To address this difficulty, some researchers have suggested that students be exposed to generic proofs. We report preliminary results of a study that employs a recent model of proof comprehension to assess the extent to which reading a generic proof improves student understanding over reading a traditional proof.