| Resumo: |
This work is inserted in the context of teaching and learning proofs and mathematical arguments in school mathematics and was developed as part of the project AProvaME (Argumentation and Proof in School Mathematics). The main aim of the study relates to the construction of a panorama of students´ conceptions about proof on the basis of the results of a questionnaire applied to nearly 2000 students aged between 14 and 15 years. More specifically, the study centres on the analysis of two questions related to Algebra (A1 and A2), which solicited the selection of arguments by the students and the assessment of these arguments in terms of their validity and generality. The questions from the questionnaire, as well as the discussions of students responses are informed principally by the research studies of Balacheff (1988) and Healy & Hoyles (2000), both of which consider empirical and formal arguments and the complex passage from the production of pragmatic to conceptual proofs. The results show that half of the 1998 subjects who completed the questionnaire had a preference for empirical arguments (verification through some cases) and a quarter chose narrative arguments. With respect to the analysis of the generality of proofs, students responses were generally somewhat inconsistent, with, for example, those who considered the same arguments to be both always true and valid only for some cases . In the group of students under our responsibility, made up of three 8th grade classes (70 students), the same results were observed. Some of the reasons motivating these choices were illuminated in the interviews. In the vision of the students, empirical evidence counts as proof and arguments in natural language are judged as clearer, with a greater explanatory power |
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