RUME 14 (Volume 1)
2011
Portland, Oregon
COMPREHENDING LERON’S STRUCTURED PROOFS
Page: 84
In a widely cited paper, Leron (1983) proposed presenting proofs in a novel format that he called “structured proofs” and suggested that this format improves comprehension. In a qualitative study, we found that participants had difficulty with this format for several reasons, including a lack of familiarity with the format and the requirement on the reader to jump around between different sections of the proof. In a larger quantitative study, we found that students reading a structured proof were better than students reading a linear proof at identifying a good summary of the proof, but performed slightly (but not statistically reliably) worse on questions concerning justifications within the proof, transferring the ideas from the proof to another setting, and illustrating the ideas of the proof using examples.