2021 Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education Reports
2021
N/A
Students’ Examining and Making Sense of Proofs by Mathematical Induction
Page: 247
Students have demonstrated difficulties in adopting the various techniques of proof in their upper-level mathematics coursework. One of these techniques of proof which students struggle with is mathematical induction. In this paper, we present an analysis of three groups of students in an Introduction to Proofs course as they made sense of and analyzed two sample induction arguments. To aid in our analysis, we utilized Stylianides' (2007) definition of proof with three components (accepted statements, modes of argumentation, modes of argument representation) to describe the components of proof students focus upon when they encounter induction arguments for the first time in an Introduction to Proof course.