RUME 27
2025
Alexandria, Virginia
An Exploration of Productive Student Reasoning About Equivalence Relations
Page: 355
Equivalence relations are a foundational concept in mathematics, yet productive student reasoning about equivalence relations remains largely understudied. Based on the descriptions of productive reasoning about equivalence that we have encountered in the literature, and the results of the data we collected from task-based interviews with advanced mathematics students, we argue that an essential aspect of productive reasoning with equivalence relations is the flexibility to transition between an element-wise, local perspective of the equivalence relation and an equivalence class level, global perspective of the equivalence relation.