RUME 26
2024
Omaha, Nebraska
Intro-to-Proof Students Discuss Logical Implication and Quantification: Themes From the Triangle Group
Page: 1333
Undergraduate students enrolled in introduction-to-proof courses often experience persistent challenges (i.e., epistemological obstacles) in learning core proof-related concepts, including logical implication and quantification. Our ongoing NSF-sponsored project examines students' experiences in such courses from multiple vantage points: whole-class discussions, small-group discussions, and clinical interviews with individual students. In this poster presentation, we discuss findings from our analyses of the discussions of one small group of students (the "Triangle Group"). Three themes emerged from our analysis. First, we found that students often place additional constraints on the truth set of a mathematical statement. Second, we found that students may not distinguish between the negation of a statement and a counterexample to that statement. Third, we found that small-group discussions can support students to address epistemological obstacles. Examples of each theme are provided in our presentation.