2021 Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education Reports
2021
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Are We Sharing the Same Interpretations For “Prove” And “Show?”: Comparison of An Instructor’s and Students’ Interpretations
Page: 139
Proof is a medium of mathematical communication and has distinct characteristics related to it. Among various characteristics, we focus on the words in proving tasks prompts (PTP), such as “prove,” “show,” “justify,” or “explain” because students’ arguments can be changed depending on the keyword, which can impact assessing their learning when the students and the instructor do not share the same interpretation for the same keyword in PTP. Thus, in this study, we observed an Introduction to Proofs course to see which and how the keywords in PTP are presented to students and interviewed the instructor and a focus group interview of her three students. The finding indicates that the instructor’s interpretation and students’ interpretations were different. Although students are adjusting their pre-existed meaning for those words to the context, this study suggests that instructors cannot assume that students share the same meaning of the keywords in PTP with them.