Topic-specific characteristics of proof-related reasoning

Abstract

Students’ difficulties with proofs are well documented. To remedy this, it is often recommended that reasoning and proving be focused on in all grades and content areas of school mathematics. However, proofs continue to have a marginal place in many classrooms, or are only given explicit attention in courses in Euclidean geometry. Geometry is also the most common topic for educational research on reasoning and proving. This paper compares what four other topics in secondary school mathematics–logarithms, primitive functions, definite integrals, and combinatorics–can offer in terms of opportunities to learn proof. The types and natures of reasoning in expository sections and students’ tasks in 11 Swedish and Finnish textbooks are analysed in search of similarities and differences between these topics. The results are accounted for with special focus on opportunities for reasoning about general cases. Finally, the findings are discussed in relation to mathematical aspects of the four analysed topics.