RUME 28
2026
Alexandria, Virginia
“Here, students write math differently”: An Exploration of Indian and USA Students’ Non-proof Mathematics Writing
Page: 1500
Students’ written mathematical communication is a critical competence emphasized worldwide, serving as an essential part of mathematics. In the context of non-proof writing in courses like Calculus and Algebra for undergraduate students, American and Indian students’ writing has visible differences. For high schoolers, such differences have been associated with showing work versus showing thinking (Nachowitz, 2019). In this study, we analyzed students’ cognitive monitoring acts (Garofalo et al., 1985) while answering descriptive and problem-solving tasks. We further analyzed its relationship with the familiarity of the task (Boesen et al., 2010) in an exam-setting. This study has the potential to provide a viable range of cognitive monitoring acts (Garofalo et al., 1985) among Indian and American students’ written responses. The observation, if found viable, can be studied further for implications for assessment.