PROCEEDINGS OF THE 20TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2017
San Diego, California
Mathematicians’ evaluations of the language of mathematical proof writing at the undergraduate level in three different pedagogical contexts
Page: 707
This proposal discusses the extent to which mathematicians agree amongst themselves with regard to what are some of the linguistic conventions of mathematical proof writing. Data from a survey of 128 mathematicians are used to address this question. Participants were asked whether various excerpts highlighted in four partial proofs were unconventional in each of three different contexts: how proofs appear in undergraduate mathematics textbooks, what instructors write on the blackboard in undergraduate mathematics courses, and how students write proofs in these courses. These data point to a lack of agreement among mathematicians on the linguistic expectations of the proofs written by their students.