PROCEEDINGS OF THE 18TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2015
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Mathematics majors’ example and diagram usage when writing calculus proofs
Page: 728
We report on a study in which we observed 73 mathematics majors completing seven proving tasks in calculus. We use these data to empirically address several hypotheses from the undergraduate proving literature. The key findings from this study include: (a) Nearly all participants introduced diagrams and examples on multiple tasks, (b) few students relied predominantly on either semantic reasoning or syntactic reasoning, and (c) there was little correlation between one’s propensity to use examples or diagrams and one’s mathematical achievement, either on the proof-writing tasks or on GPA in advanced mathematics courses.