Students backtracked far more before applying the inductive hypothesis than after, suggesting difficulty finding where to place it¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · design r3 · q2
Currency · newest study 2026 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? In the first deployment the average student performed 32.7 backtracking actions before applying the inductive hypothesis and only 7.1 after. → Matthew Keenan 2026

Evidence¶

Matthew Keenan 2026¶

Matthew Keenan, Nishant Kheterpal, Jean-Baptiste Jeannin, Cyrus Omar. (2026). Hazel Prover: A Classroom Proof Assistant for Learning Structural Induction. https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.23309 doi:10.48550/arxiv.2608.23309

q2 · i? · design · r3

Log-replay analysis of first-deployment submissions categorized by proof milestone (Table 1(e)), comparing backtracking before versus after inductive-hypothesis use. The averages 32.7 and 7.1 are descriptive counts; no effect size is printed.

"Across the three exercises, in the first deployment, the average student performed 32.7 backtracking actions before applying the inductive hypothesis, and only 7.1 backtracking actions after."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Student backtracking before setting up the correct induction decreased across exercises in both deployments, indicating a learning curve — related
• After the design iteration, no student deleted an evaluation step, in contrast to frequent step deletion in the first deployment — related