Students at all levels have serious difficulties constructing proofs, with instruction explicitly teaching expert heuristics substantially increasing proof-writing ability¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · review r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2013 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? The review reports Senk's finding that only 30% of 1520 high school geometry students could prove three of four theorems and 29% could not produce a single proof. → Keith Weber 2013

Evidence¶

Keith Weber 2013¶

Keith Weber, Matthew Inglis & Juan Pablo Mejia-Ramos. (2013). How mathematicians obtain conviction: Implications for mathematics instruction and research on epistemic cognition. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2013.865527

q2 · i? · review · r2

The review reports Senk's large-scale study asking 1520 high school geometry students to prove four theorems, two requiring only a single deduction beyond given information. Only 30% could prove three of the four; the review attributes similar results to other studies.

"She found that only 30% of the sample were able to prove three of these four theorems and 29% of the sample were unable to produce a single proof."

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Writing Skills — outcome: instruction changes it

Related Claims¶

• Students and researchers gave systematically different types of explanatory comments about the visual argument, with students rejecting pictures as proofs — related