The Roles of Argumentation Structures for The Conviction of Proof Types

Abstract

"This phenomenology research aims to examine prospective elementary mathematics teachers’ proving and proof evaluation and their thoughts on convincing according to proof type and argument type. The participants were eight prospective teachers. The data collection tools were semi-structured group interviews, interviews video recordings and the participants' written proof documents. The participants were expected to prove different mathematical statements presented to them with different proof types, to convince each other, and to identify the convincing arguments in the interviews. The results revealed that prospective mathematics teachers had absolute conviction about empirical arguments, while their level of convincing about deductive arguments increased as a result of discussions on convincing regardless of the proof type. In addition, the unconvincing for induction and visual proof types’ arguments have emerged and this category has changed to convincing over time. Accordingly, suggestions about increasing the convincing of deductive and visual arguments have been presented"